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LECTURES 



CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 



ANDREW P. PEABODY, 

PASTOR OF THE SOUTH CHUECH, PORTSMOUTH, K. H. 






BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY JAMES MUNROE & CO. 

1844. 









Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SJ4, by 

ANDREW P. PEABODY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



GEORGE COOLIDGE, PRIXTER, 

57 Washington Street. 



PREFACE 



These Lectures were prepared for the pulpit, without 
the slightest reference to their publication. They have 
been sent to the press as first written, at the urgent solicita- 
tion of many of the author's parishioners. They are not 
offered to the public, as a full compend of christian doc- 
trine, or as a fair exhibition of the positive side of the 
author's own faith; but simply as a discussion of the 
prominent points at issue between the Unitarian and the 
Calvinistic portion of the christian church. As such, they 
were deemed valuable and satisfactory by those, who heard 
them ; and it is hoped that they will prove so to those, who 
may read them. To the Parish, whose uniformly kind and 
indulgent appreciation of his services and labors he is 
happy thus to acknowledge, they are respectfully and 
affectionately inscribed by 

THE AUTHOR. 

Portsmouth. N. H.. Jan. 8. 1844. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I. 

THE DIVINE NATURE, 



LECTURE II. 

JESUS CHRIST, 32 

LECTURE III. 

JESUS CHRIST, 07 

LECTURE IV. 

THE HOLY SPIRIT, 93 

LECTURE V. 

HUMAN NATURE, 116 

LECTURE VI. 

REGENERATION, 139 

LECTURE VII. 

THE ATONEMENT, 166 

LECTURE VIII. 

THE ATONEMENT 196 



LECTURE I. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 



EPHESIANS IV. 6. 

ONE GOD AND FATHER OF ALL, WHO IS ABOVE ALL, AND 
THROUGH ALL, AND IN "SOU ALL. 

My object, in the course of lectures which I now 
commence, is to exhibit, so far as I am able, a fair 
and candid view of the points, on which most of us 
differ from other classes of christians, and of the 
grounds, on which our peculiar views rest. In doing 
this, it will of course be necessary for me to make 
reference to the creeds of others ; but such reference 
will be made as seldom as possible, in a spirit of un- 
feigned kindness, and, I trust, in a kindly tone and 
manner. My aim is, not controversy, but truth. I 
wish to aid you in the establishment of your own 
faith, not to furnish you with the means of attacking 
your neighbors. I wish to have you capable of main- 
taining and defending your views of christian truth 
when they are assailed, and of instructing in them 
the young and inquiring ; but should be exceedingly 
1 



2 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

sorry to see among you that proselyting spirit, which 
would make incursions into other folds, or hurl the 
missiles of theological warfare at those, who have 
adopted other modes of faith. Equally sorry should 
I be, that you should take any views of truth on my 
authority. Let me act only as your pioneer. 

Our text implies the unity of God. This doctrine 
there is no need of our defending against Polytheism. 
But there has grown up in the christian church a 
doctrine, which, to those who reject it, seems as much 
opposed to the divine unity, as any form of Polythe- 
ism is. I mean the doctrine of the Trinity. This 
will be my subject this evening. We will first in- 
quire whether the Bible teaches, or implies, the view 
of the divine nature designated by this word ; and, if 
it shall appear that the Bible teaches no such doctrine, 
we will then endeavor to ascertain whence it comes. 
I shall reserve for future lectures the arguments for 
and against the supreme divinity of our Savior, and 
for and against the personality of the Holy Spirit, and 
shall confine myself this evening to the single point 
of a threefold distinction in the divine nature. 

We ought at the outset to define the Trinity. But 
here we are thrown into confusion ; for hardly any 
two writers will agree upon the same definition. We 
may, however, classify the definitions given, and 
may thus show the different senses, in which this 
doctrine has been professed and held. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 6 

1. There are many professed Trinitarians, particu- 
larly of the English church, who maintain the su- 
premacy of the first person of the Trinity, and the 
subordinate rank of the other two. This was the 
belief of bishop Bull, who wrote much upon the 
subject, was called in England a Trinitarian, and was 
deemed an able defender of the creed of his own 
church, but whose writings would pass, (and justly,) 
as Unitarian, on this side of the Atlantic. Indeed, 
his is nearly the same doctrine, on account of which, 
Rev. Noah and Thomas Worcester, of our own state, 
were, thirty or forty years ago, cast out as heretics by 
their clerical brethren ; and a singular fact it is, that, 
for similar views, similarly expressed, christian min- 
isters should, on one side of the Atlantic, be crowned 
with fame and honor, in a Trinitarian church, as de- 
fenders of the faith, and on the other side should be 
compelled to take up the cross of persecution, and 
bear the reproach of heresy. But our American 
clergy were right. The second and third persons of 
the Trinity either are self- existent, or were created. 
If self-existent, they must needs be independent. 
Having within themselves the cause of their own 
existence, they must be complete and self-sufficient, 
so that they cannot have come into subjection to any 
other being. But, according to bishop Bull, they are 
subordinate ; and, if subordinate, they are not self- 



4 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

existent, but must have been created, cannot then 
have existed from eternity, and therefore are not God- 
Bishop Bull, indeed, admits that they were derived 
from the divine essence, which is merely an obscure 
and involved way of saying that they were created 
out of nothing. 

2. There are others, (and they are very numerous 
in our own country,) who understand by the Trinity 
a threefold classification of the divine attributes. 
According to tins view, God, being still one and the 
same being, in nature and providence, is called the 
Father, — in the work of redemption, the Son, — in 
his converting and sanctifying influences, the Holy 
Sphit. Thus we have God the Creator and Preserv- 
er, God manifest in the flesh, and God dwelling and 
working in -the human soul ; and these three, not 
separate beings, but the same being regarded in three 
different aspects. This is the view presented in that 
very popular doctrinal work, Abbot's Corner Stone ; 
and, from the general acceptance which this book has 
found, I infer that this view of the Trinity is not 
deemed heretical. But it differs from Unitarianism 
only in name and in form of statement. 

3. Another form, in which the Trinity has been 
held, supposes three distinct and equal divine minds 
united by a mutual consciousness of each other's 
volitions and acts. Sherlock, an eminent divine of 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 

the Church of England, says : ' To say that there are 
three divine persons, and not three distinct infinite 
minds, is both heresy and nonsense. The distinction 
of persons cannot be more truly and aptly represent- 
ed, than by the distinction between three men ; for 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are as really distinct 
persons, as Peter, James, and John. "We must allow 
the divine persons to be real, substantial beings.' 
Howe, the celebrated Calvinistic divine, speaks of 
the three divine persons as ' distinct, individual, 
necessarily existing, spiritual beings,' forming togeth- 
er ' the most delicious society.' This comes nearer 
an intelligible doctrine than most statements of the 
Trinity. But it sounds strangely like Tritheism ; and 
I hardly know how those, who maintain it, can be 
said to believe in the unity of God. 

4. There is another class of Trinitarians, probably 
the largest of all, who profess to believe the doctrine, 
without attempting to understand or explain it ; that 
is, they hold the phraseology of the doctrine sacred, 
but attach no meaning to it. The nearest approach 
that they can make to a definition of the Trinity, is, 
to say that it is three somewhats somehoiv united. 

Such are the various forms, in which the doctrine 
of the Trinity is held in the christian church, — forms 
so diverse from each other, that, were we to define 
the Trinity, so as to include the views of all who 



b THE DIVINE NATURE. 

profess to believe in it, we could only say that it 
denotes God to be both three and one. 

Let us now see whether the Bible teaches a Trini- 
ty. This doctrine, if it be true, is of the utmost 
interest and moment, and ought to mould and shape 
all our religious notions, and to be recognized in all 
our praises and our prayers. We should, therefore, 
expect to see it very clearly set forth in a revelation, 
purporting to come from God. But so far is this from 
being the case, that Trinitarians do not quote a single 
text as declarative of this prime article of their creed. 
They admit that it is nowhere distinctly stated in the 
Bible. Formerly, the three stories of Noah's Ark, 
and the proverb, ' A threefold cord is not easily 
broken,' occupied a prominent place among Trinita- 
rian proof-texts ; but no one would think of using 
them now, and there remains not a single text from 
the Old Testament, which Trinitarians now cite as 
designating a threefold distinction in the divine 
nature. 

There are, however, numerous instances, in which, 
when the Almighty is spoken of in the Hebrew 
scriptures, a plural form is used, — sometimes a plural 
noun connected with a singular verb, — sometimes a 
plural pronoun with a plural verb, when God is repre- 
sented as speaking in the first person. The Hebrew 
word hi the Old Testament most frequently translated 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 7 

God, is Elohim, a plural noun, literally meaning 
gods ; but it is usually connected with verbs in the 
singular, so as to indicate that but one person is de- 
noted by the plural noun. There are also several 
instances, in which we find such forms of speech as 
these : ' Let us make man in our image, after our 
likeness,' — ' Let us go down, and there confound 
their language.' Now though this form of speech has 
often been quoted to prove a plurality of persons in 
the divine nature, I can hardly conceive of its being 
quoted, with such a purpose, by any person moderate- 
ly well acquainted with the Hebrew tongue. This 
plural form is a common Hebrew idiom, employed 
whenever anything of peculiar dignity or magnitude 
is spoken of. Grammarians call it the plural of excel- 
lence or majesty ; and truly learned and candid Trini- 
tarians admit that it is nothing more. Calvin, whose 
orthodoxy none will doubt, sets aside this argument 
for the Trinity. Professor Stuart, in his Hebrew 
Grammar, speaks of this form as simply denoting 
dignity or majesty, and as having no connection with 
the idea of plurality. Permit me to give you one or 
two examples of the way, in which this plural of ex- 
cellence is employed. You all remember in the book 
of Job, the description of the behemoth, by which is 
probably meant the hippopotamus. Behemoth is the 
plural of behemah, which means a beast. As used in 



8 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

Job, it is a plural noun joined with singular verbs and 
pronouns, and evidently means a great b 'east ; and the 
hippopotamus was denoted by this indefinite word, 
expressing his vast size and strength, because there 
was no name for him in the Hebrew. The same 
plural form is used when false gods are spoken of. 
Baalim and Ashtaroth are plural nouns. ' The lords of 
the Philistines gathered them together, to offer a great 
sacrifice unto Dagon, their god,' literally, gods* The 
same plural word is used, when the Almighty says to 
Moses, ' See, I have made thee a god, literally, gods, 
(elohim,) to Pharaoh.' t Where it is said that the 
butler and the baker ' had offended their lord the king 
of Egypt,'$ the Hebrew word is lords, (one of the 
plural titles of the Almighty;) and so it is where 
Joseph's brethren say of him, ' The man who is the 
lord, literally, lords, of the land, spake roughly unto 
us.'§ Many of you well know what the Septuagint 
is, — a Greek translation of the Old Testament, made 
by learned Jews long prior to the christian era. 
These Jews must of course have understood their 
own language, and must have known whether there 
was any mysterious signification couched in Elohim 
and other kindred forms ; but they invariably render 
these Hebrew plurals by Greek nouns in the singular, 
without any additional qualifying words. 

* Judges xvi. 23. f Exodus vii. 1. 

% Genesis xl. 1. § Genesis xlji. 30. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 9 

There is another consideration of great weight, 
with reference, not to this point alone, but to the 
Old Testament generally, and one which demon- 
strates beyond dispute, that the Trinity was not 
taught in the Jewish scriptures. It is this : the 
Jews, in general, both in ancient and modern times, 
have been opposed to this docrine, have left no trace 
of it in their standard commentaries and religious 
works, and have resisted the use of their sacred 
writings in proof of it. There was indeed a seem- 
ing exception to this remark, in a numerous sect of 
Platonistic Jews, whose head quarters were at Alex- 
andria. They, in common •with the later Platonists 
generally, maintained a Trinity, yet less as a theo- 
logical than as a philosophical dogma, drawing their 
authority for it less from Moses and the prophets, 
than from Plato and his disciples, from whom, as I 
believe, it crept into the christian church. These 
Trinitarian Jews have had a few successors in more 
recent times. But to the Jews in general, the Trinity 
has been for ages, and still is, the greatest stumbling- 
block in the way of their conversion to Christianity. 
It is universally admitted, that a very large part of the 
early Jewish converts rejected the Trinity; and it is 
a striking and significant fact, that great numbers of 
the Jews continued to become christians up to the date, 
when, as we believe, the Trinity was foisted into the 



10 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

christian system, while, since that date, the conver- 
sion of a single Jew has been one of the rarest of 
events. 

These facts indicate that the Trinity could have 
formed no part of the Jewish revelation. But, if 
this were the case, we should expect to find this doc- 
trine formally and explicitly announced in the New 
Testament, and occupying there the prominent place, 
which of right belongs to a radically new view of the 
divine nature. But how is this ? It is not pretend- 
ed that there is in the New Testament any express 
declaration of this doctrine ; and there are quoted but 
two texts, in which the names of the three persons 
are said to be placed together in such a way, as 
strongly to imply a trinity in unity. 

The text most relied on is the form of baptism ' in 
or into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of 
the Holy Ghost or Spirit.'^ One would think at first 
sight that this form implied anything rather than 
three equal persons ; for what mean the terms, Father 
and Son? If they mean anything, must they not 
denote the derived and subordinate existence of him, 
who is termed the Son ? It is of no avail to call this 
an unsearchable mystery. The words Father and 
Son as used in this connection either mean some- 
thing or nothing. If nothing, then does the Bible 

* Matthew xxviii. 19. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 11 

mock man's ignorance by the wanton use of words 
without meaning. But if they mean anything, they 
must at least denote that the Son owes his existence 
to a Father, therefore is not self- existent, and conse- 
quently is not God. Yet more, the words employed 
in this text to denote the Holy Spirit are, hi the orig- 
inal, a neuter noun and adjective ; and, though words 
in the neuter gender might naturally be used to sig- 
nify a divine influence, we can hardly suppose that 
they would be selected to designate a divine person. 
Is it said that the sacred writers could not have thus 
connected unequal names ? What shall we say then 

of this passage, — £ All the congregation 

worshipped the Lord and the king ? '* Or of this, — 
1 1 charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and the elect angels ? 'f Is it said that, baptism being 
a form of dedication, the sacred writers could not 
have connected it with any but divine names ? I 
reply that the Israelites are said by St. Paul to have 
been ' baptized unto Moses,'$ and that he also speaks 
of the disciples of Christ as having been * baptized 
into his death.'§ In the former instance, men are 
said to be baptized unto one, who confessedly is not 
God ; and in the latter, into what, it must be admitted, 
is not a person. 

* 1 Chronicles xxix. 20. f 1 Timothy v. 21. 

\ 1 Corinthians x. 2. § Romans vi. 3. 



12 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

The form of baptism depends not for its appropriate- 
ness on the doctrine of the Trinity. The infant or the 
convert, on being initiated into the church of Christ, 
is most naturally and fittingly consecrated to the 
Father God, whom Jesus revealed and manifested, 
to the great Teacher himself, and to the regenera- 
ting and sanctifying influence from heaven, without 
which one cannot truly be a christian. 

The other Trinitarian proof-text is the apostolic 
benediction : ' The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
and the love of God, and the communion of the 
Holy Ghost, be with you all.' # This proves nothing. 
Had a formal statement of the Trinity been here 
intended, the second person would not have been 
placed first. The obvious sense of the benediction 
is : ' May the favor of the great Head of the church, 
the love of his God and your God, and the free and 
constant participation of his sanctifying influences, be 
yours forever.' 

These are the only texts, which Trinitarians in 
general cite as declarative of a threefold distinction 
in the divine nature. There still stands in our 
English Bible, a text, which more than implies the 
Trinity. It is this : ' There are three that bear record 
in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, 

* 2 Corinthians xiii. 14. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 13 

and these three are one. ' * It is now admitted on 
all sides, that this verse formed no part of the origi- 
nal text of the New Testament. The highest au- 
thority for the text of the New Testament is that of 
ancient Greek manuscripts, of which several hun- 
dreds of either a whole or a part of the New Tes- 
tament, bearing date from the fourth century down 
to the invention of the art of printing, have been 
examined and collated. No less than a hundred 
and fiftij of these manuscripts contain the first epis- 
tle of John; but the text in question is not found 
in one of them. The next highest authority is that 
of manuscripts of ancient versions of the New Tes- 
tament. This text is wanting in all of this class of 
manuscripts, except in those of the Vulgate Latin, 
and is wanting in all the earliest manuscripts, even 
of that. The next highest authority is that of the 
numerous scriptural quotations of the earlier christian 
writers. Now, none of the Greek fathers, who used 
the New Testament in its original, have quoted this 
text, or recognized its existence, no, not even in the 
height of the Arian controversy, when every text 
that could be made available was pressed into the 
service. This text was not printed in the earliest 
printed editions of the Greek Testament ; and, when 

* 1 John v. 7. 



14 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

it was first printed, it was translated into Greek from 
the Latin of the Vulgate, — the accredited version of 
the Romish church. Erasmus, the greatest biblical 
scholar at the era of the Reformation, had published 
two editions of the New Testament without insert- 
ing this text. He was earnestly remonstrated with 
for omitting it ; and his reply was, that he would in- 
sert it, if a single Greek manuscript containing it 
could be found. A manuscript was found and sent 
him, — a manuscript undoubtedly prepared for that 
express purpose, as there are no traces of its previ- 
ous existence. He, to make his promise good, in- 
serted the disputed text in his third edition ; and it 
so happened that this third edition became the basis 
of the generally received Greek text, which was 
used by King James's translators. Such is the his- 
tory of the only text in the Bible, which indisputa- 
bly stands where it has no rightful place. But it 
occupies this place chiefly in editions and transla- 
tions of the Vulgate, and in our common English 
Bibles. It is omitted in critical editions of the Greek 
Testament. Luther omitted it in his German Bible ; 
Calvin spoke doubtingly of it ; nor do I find a single 
critic or commentator, however orthodox, who leaves 
it unquestioned. Wardlaw, the most able champion 
of the Trinity, within the range of my reading, says 
of this text : ' This text should have been entitled 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 15 

to hold the first place, if its genuineness had been 
undisputed, or disputed on slender grounds. I freely 
acknowledge, however, that the evidence of the 
spuriousness of this celebrated passage, if it were 
even much less conclusive than in my own mind it 
appears to be, would be quite sufficient to prevent 
me from resting upon it any part of the weight of 
my argument.' 

So much for this text. But let me, in connection 
with it, though rambling from my main subject, say 
a word upon the certainty, which we enjoy, that the 
New Testament has come down to us substantially 
as it was at first written. These hundreds of manu- 
scripts, these ancient versions, these numerous and 
copious quotations by the fathers of the church, 
constitute a vast array of witnesses, who all agree in 
testifying to the genuineness, sentence for sentence, 
and almost word for word, of the christian scriptures 
as we have them. To be sure, slips of the pen in 
transcribing, have produced many slight differences » 
corresponding to the misprints in a printed book. 
But, in the whole of the New Testament, there is 
not a single sentence, not a single phrase of import- 
ance, and there are but two words of essential 
significance, with regard to which the vast majority 
of the witnesses do not agree. 

You must, I think, see with me on how frail a 



16 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

foundation the scriptural argument for the Trinity 
rests. There is one other consideration, to which I 
would allude with all possible brevity. The first 
person of the Trinity is termed the Father ; but did it 
never occur to you, that the doctrine of the Trinity 
deprives him of all his fatherly attributes, and trans- 
fers them to the Son and the Holy Spirit ? Their 
offices are all fatherly ; his are those of the relentless 
potentate and Judge. For which is the true Father, 
— he, who gives his life a ransom for the children; 
or he, who demands and receives the full price for 
their blood ? Which is the true Father, — he, who 
sits cold and stern at the helm of the universe ; or 
he, who draws nigh to the children's hearts in breath- 
ings of counsel, comfort, and hope ? If this distinc- 
tion between the three persons have any reality, is 
not he that redeems, or he that sanctifies, the Fath- 
er ? To "which of these three persons does the Trin- 
itarian come with the fullest assurance, in the most 
confiding maimer, with the most trustful spirit ? Not 
to the Father, (so called,) but to the Son. To the 
Father go up the cold and formal vows, the set praises ; 
to the Son, the warm outpourings of the full heart, 
and those inward groanings too deep, too fervent 
for utterance. Nor can it be rejoined, in answer 
to this reasoning, that the first person of the 
Trinity is called Father with reference to the other 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 17 

two persons, and not with reference to man. For 
the being, whom Jesus calls Father, he continually 
sets forth as man's Father. In talking to his disci- 
ples, he calls him your Father, as often as my Fath- 
er; and even calls him by both titles in the same 
sentence, as, for instance, when he says : ' I ascend 
unto my Father and your Father.' * Thus are the 
details of the doctrine of the Trinity at war with its 
phraseology. Does not this discrepancy indicate the 
error of man, rather than the wisdom of God ? 
"Would it not seem a mockery of human ignorance, 
for the Almighty to set forth his mere abstract 
essence, dread power, and infinite wisdom, and bid 
men call that cold abstraction Father, and to refuse 
this dearest of all names for those of his attributes, 
to which his children cling with filial confidence and 
love, — to make them cry, Abba, Father, where 
they feel not the spirit of the adoption, and to sup- 
press that cry, where the heart is bursting to give it 
utterance ? This must verily be the commandment 
of men, and not the doctrine of God. 

But whence crept the Trinity into the christian 
fold ? This question I shall now answer by giving 
as brief a sketch as possible of the history of the 
Trinity. But the first part of my history must be 

*John xx. 17. 
2* 



18 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

that of simple Unitarianism ; for vestiges of no 
other form of doctrine can be traced back farther 
than the third century, nor can we find any evidence 
that the doctrine of three equal persons in the God- 
head was maintained till late in the fourth century. 
I am prepared to state without fear of contradiction, 
that the doctrine of the equality of the Father, Son, 
and Holy Spirit, cannot be found in any work of the 
first three centuries, and that there cannot be found, 
with reference to the divine nature, in any genuine 
christian work of the first two centuries, any state- 
ment of doctrine, equivalent, or approaching to, or 
consistent with the modern doctrine of the Trinity. 
Is it said, that, because there was no controversy 
about this doctrine, it was passed over in silence? 
I reply, that, as the christian fathers wrote chiefly 
about the divine nature, attributes, and will, if they 
had this idea, they could not have failed to use cor- 
responding phraseology; for Trinitarian phraseology 
is now used by Trinitarians, not only in controversial 
writings, but in prayers and in practical sermons, 
and has been freely used during ages when the 
doctrine was received without opposition or dissent. 
Yet, farther, it is as certain as any fact in histoiy, 
that the Trinity was not in primitive times the doc- 
trine of the whole church, even if we were to admit 
that it was held by a part of the church. No eccle- 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 19 

siastical historian denies or doubts that the Judaizing 
christians of Palestine, who formed distinct sects 
early in the second century, were Unitarians. There 
were two sects of these christians, — the Ebionites 
and the Nazarenes. The Ebionites believed Jesus 
to have been a mere man, the son of Joseph and 
Mary ; and they are uniformly spoken of by the 
Orthodox fathers as heretics. The Nazarenes be- 
lieved in the miraculous birth and superhuman dignity 
of Jesus, but regarded him as a created and finite 
being ; and they seem to have been regarded as 
Orthodox in the earliest times, and are not spoken of 
as heretics till the fourth century. For these facts, it 
may be sufficient to refer you to the ecclesiastical 
history of Mosheim, himself a Trinitarian. Now 
could the Trinity have been believed by the great 
body of the church during the first three centuries, 
and these Nazarenes have been left without anath- 
ema and obloquy ? 

There is yet another remark of importance to be 
made with regard to the early christian writings. 
They consisted not only of works for the edification 
of those within the church, but many of them were 
written for the defence and propagation of the new 
faith, and were addressed to Jews and Pagans, — to 
the opposers and persecutors of the church. In 
writings of this class, the most important doctrine of 



20 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

the whole christian system could not have been 
passed over in silence. It must needs have been 
clearly stated and expounded for the benefit of the 
uninitiated, and elaborately defended against doubts 
and objections. Let us see then what kind of lan- 
guage the early advocates of Christianity used in 
propagating and defending their religion. 

On the day of Pentecost, Peter addressed a con- 
fused, sceptical, and mocking multitude, many of 
whom had come from afar, and were utter strangers 
to the new religion. Hear his simple statement, 
which made, we are told, three thousand converts. 
{ Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among 
you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God 
did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also 
know ; him, being delivered by the determinate 
counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, 
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom 
God hath raised up.' # Hear also in what terms 
Paul preached Jesus for the first time before the 
superstitious and idolatrous Athenians. ' He hath 
appointed a day, in the which he will judge the 
world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath 
ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all 
men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.' t 
Hear also St. Paul's synopsis of his own preaching, in 

* Acts ii. 22-24. t Acts xvii. 31. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 21 

that bold, manly defence before Agrippa, in which 
you will all feel that it was infinitely beneath the 
apostle's character to have used concealment or 
equivocation. ' I continue unto this day, witnessing 
both to small and great, saying none other things 
than those which the prophets and Moses did say 
should come : that Christ should suffer, and that he 
should be the first that should rise from the dead, and 
should shew light unto the people, and to the Gen- 
tiles.' # ' Saying none other things' — could St. Paul 
have honestly made such a denial as this, if he had 
preached so novel and momentous a view of the 
divine nature as the Trinity unfolds, especially when 
it is considered that this must have been an entirely 
unknown doctrine to Agrippa ? 

The only other christian apologist, whom I have 
time to quote, is Justin Martyr, who addressed a 
defence of Christianity to Antonius Pius about the 
year 140, and about the same time wrote a defence 
of Christianity against Jewish objections, in the form 
of a dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Justin, I 
remark, in passing, has always held an unquestioned 
rank among the Orthodox fathers. Speaking of 
Jesus, (in the dialogue with Trypho,) he says : ' The 
Father is the author to him, both of his existence, 
and of his being powerful, and of his being Lord and 

* Acts xxvi. 22, 23. 



22 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

divine.' ' He was subordinate to the Father and a 
minister to his will.' 

I will now offer you a few extracts from the 
fathers of the first three or four centuries, premising 
that I shall quote from no reputed heretic, but only 
from those, whom the Trinitarians regard as repre- 
sentatives of the Orthodoxy of their times. I shall 
have no difficulty, I think, in showing you that these 
fathers were what we now call "Unitarians. 

Clement of Rome, a personal friend of St. Paul, 
(believed on the concurring testimony of antiquity to 
be the Clement mentioned by St. Paul in the epistle 
to the Philippians,^) styles Jesus ' the sceptre of the 
majesty of God.' We find, towards the close of his 
epistle to the Corinthians, the following doxology, — 
could a Trinitarian have written it ? ' Now God, the 
Inspector of all things, the Father of all spirits, and 
the Lord of all flesh, who has chosen our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and us by him, to be his peculiar people, grant 
to every soul of man that calleth upon his glorious 
and holy name, faith, fear, peace, long-suffering, pa- 
tience, temperance, holiness, and sobriety, unto all 
well-pleasing in his sight, through our High Priest 
and Protector Christ Jesus, by whom be glory, and 
majesty, and power, and honor unto him, now and 
forever.' 

* Philippians iv. 3. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 23 

Clement of Alexandria, who wrote near the begin- 
ning of the third century, says : ' The Mediator per- 
forms the will of the Father. The Word is the 
Mediator, being common to both, the Seal of God 
and the Savior of men, God's Servant and onr 
Instructor/ 

Origen, the most learned of the fathers, wrote 
about the year 225. He says : ' The Father only is the 
Good; and the Savior, as he is the image of the 
invisible God, so is he the image of his goodness.' 
1 If we know what prayer is, we must not pray to 
any created being, not to Christ himself, but only to 
God, the Father of all, to whom our Savior himself 
prayed.' ' We are not to pray to a brother, who has 
the same Fatlier-with ourselves, Jesus himself saying 
that we must pray to the Father through the Son.' 
If this be not Unitarianism, what is it ? 

Eusebius, the father of ecclesiastical history, who 
wrote about the year 320, says : ' There is one God, 
and the only begotten comes out of him.' ' Christ, 
being neither the Supreme God, nor an angel, is of a 
middle nature between them ; and, being neither the 
Supreme God, nor a man, but the Mediator, is in the 
middle between them, the only begotten Son of God/ 
1 Christ, the only begotten Son of God, and the first- 
born of every creature, teaches us to call his Father 
the true God, and commands us to worship him only/ 



24 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

I had marked for quotation many more extracts 
from the same and other fathers of the church ; but 
I omit them for the sake of brevity. And now let me 
ask, could these fathers have been Trinitarians in 
the modern sense of that word ? Could a modern 
Trinitarian have written the passages which I have 
now quoted ? Had I quoted them, without naming 
their authors, would you not have taken them for 
extracts from the writings of Unitarian divines ? I 
trust that there is no need of my saying, that I have 
endeavored to represent the opinions of those times 
impartially. During the second and third centuries, 
from a source which I shall shortly indicate, there 
was a gradual introduction of Trinitarian phraseology 
into the church. But I no more believe that I 
myself am a Unitarian, than I do that the christian 
fathers of the first three centuries, whose works 
have come down to us, "were all of them virtually 
Unitarians. Though, from the time of Justin down- 
ward, there was a gradual departure from the sim- 
plicity of the gospel, and a tendency towards 
mystical views of the divine nature, and towards 
the recognition of a threefold distinction therein, yet 
I believe, that, down to the end of the second century 
at least, if not of the third, the doctrine of three equal 
persons in the Godhead would have been deemed as 
grossly heretical, as that of the undivided unity of 
God is anywhere regarded at the present time. 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 25 

"We have now reached the period of the Arian 
controversy, and the celebrated Council of Mce. 
The Arian controversy was on tins wise. Alexander, 
bishop of Alexandria, in an assembly of his pres- 
byters, maintained that the Son was of the same 
essence with the Father. This assertion was op- 
posed by Arius, one of his presbyters, who maintained 
that the Son was totally and essentially distinct from 
the Father, being the first and noblest of his creatures. 
The dispute waxed warm, each side finding strong 
and determined champions, until at length Alexander 
summoned a numerous council, and deposed Arius 
and his adherents from their offices in the church. 
"Upon this, the controversy spread like wildfire, in- 
flamed the whole church, and finally led to the 
summoning of the Council of Mce, which, met in the 
year 325, condemned by vote of the majority the doc- 
trine of Alius, procured his banishment into IUyria. 
and established what is called the Nicene creed, — a 
creed not strictly Trinitarian, though strongly tending 
that way. This creed applies the title God to our 
Savior ; but calls him God out of or derived from God, 
and thus does not make him a self-existent and inde- 
pendent being, so that this last step towards the full 
development of the Trinity still remained to be 
taken. There was a large minority of the council 
that dissented from this creed, though it was backed 
3 



26 The divine nature. 

by the authority of the emperor Constantine, who 
took an active part in the session. Only five years 
afterwards, the emperor, having become an Arian, re- 
pealed the laws against Alius, and instituted a series 
of oppressive measures against the partisans of the 
Nicene creed. Ten years after the session of the 
Council of Nice, the Council of Tyre deposed Atha- 
nasius, Alexander's successor, and reinstated Arius 
and his adherents in their former offices and honors 
in the Alexandrian church. From this time, for a 
period of more than forty years, the Arian party gen- 
erally had the supremacy; and the Nicene creed 
could not, therefore, have been called the creed of 
the church until near the close of the fourth century. 
The Athanasian creed is the oldest monument ex- 
tant of the doctrine of three literally equal persons 
in the Godhead. Tins was probably written by Hi- 
lary, who died in the latter part of the fourth century. 
It has been recognized in the Romish church as an 
authentic compend of faith, since the ninth or tenth 
century. It is retained in the English book of com- 
mon prayer ; and its exclusion from the service of the 
American Episcopal church was assented to with 
great reluctance by their transatlantic brethren. It 
is a very long and prolix document, and I cannot 
burden you with the whole of it ; yet I am going to 
give you a pretty long extract from it, for two reasons, 
first, that you may see in its own canonical language 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 27 

what absurdities and contradictions the doctrine of 
the Trinity involves, and, secondly, that you may con- 
trast it, as I read it, with ' the simplicity that is in 
Christ.' 

' We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in 
unity ; neither confounding the persons, nor dividing 
the substance. For there is one person of the Father, 
another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. 
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of 
the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty 
coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, 
and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreate, 
the Son uncreate, and the Holy Spirit uncreate. The 
Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, 
and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father 
eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. 
And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. 
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor 
three uncreated ; but one uncreate and one incom- 
prehensible. So likewise, the Father is Almighty, 
the Son Almighty, and the Holy Spirit Almighty. 
And yet there are not three Almighties ; but one Al- 
mighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and 
the Holy Spirit is God. And yet they are not three 
Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, 
the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord ; and yet not 
three Lords, but one Lord, For like as we are com-- 



28 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

pelled by the christian verity to acknowledge eveiy 
person by himself to be God and Lord, so are we 
forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There be 

three Gods or three Lords And in this 

Trinity, none is fore or after other ; none is greater 
or less than another ; but the whole three persons are 
coeternal together and coequal.' Of all which and 
much more like it, the creed in its sequel charitably 
asserts, and the good people of the English church 
are compelled by the rubric to hear on no less than 
thirteen Sundays and festivals in the year : ' Which 
faith except every one do keep whole and undenled, 
without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.' The 
only appropriate response to this would be in the 
words of the apostles, ' Who then can be saved ? ' 

We have now seen that the doctrine of the Trinity 
is not taught in the Bible, and that it formed no part 
of the christian system as maintained by the primi- 
tive church. Whence then came it? I have no 
hesitation in referring it to the Platonic philosophy. 
Plato had written much about three divine principles, 
which he had styled the One or the Good, Mind or 
Word, and Soul or Spirit. His followers had talked 
and written mystically about these same three prin- 
ciples, until the number three had become with them 
a sacred number, and a divine Trinity had assumed 
a prominent place among the doctrines of the later 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 29 

Platonists, insomuch, that it may be traced in all their 
works, In process of time, many eminent Platonists 
became christians. Justin Martyr was a devoted 
disciple of Plato. Alexandria, which, as we have 
seen, was the birth-place of the christian Trinity, 
was the head quarters of Platonism ; and the early 
Trinitarian fathers were all Platonists, and were 
therefore Trinitarians before they became christians. 
These fathers, having been much and long in the 
schools of philosophy, could not come to Jesus with 
the simplicity of little children. They were unwill- 
ing to be disciples of Christ alone. They quoted 
Plato and Jesus Christ in the same breath, believed 
in both with equally unhesitating assurance, incor- 
porated the Platonic Trinity into their religious creed, 
remodelled the christian system in the Platonic 
mould, and then complimented the memory of Plato 
on his having anticipated the essential doctrines of 
the gospel. That this statement is not exaggerated 
will appear from the fact, that, in their extant wri- 
tings, the early Trinitarian fathers always quote Plato 
and his followers as freely as they do the New Tes- 
tament, on the subject of the Trinity. St. Augustine 
expressly says, that he was in the dark with regard 
to the Trinity, until he found the true doctrine con- 
cerning the divine "Word in a Latin translation of 
some Platonic writings, which the providence of God 
3* 



30 THE DIVINE NATURE. 

had thrown in his way. I might, had I time, adduce 
numerous quotations from the christian fathers to the 
same effect 

I have now accomplished, as far as possible within 
the limits of a single lecture, the work proposed. I 
have shown you, as I think, that the Trinity is not a 
doctrine of the Bible, that it was not believed or 
taught by the early christian fathers, and that it 
derived its technical phraseology, its ideas and its 
ultimate form, from the Platonic philosophy. 

One word in conclusion. If the view which I 
have now presented be just, ours is no new doctrine, 
but the faith first delivered to the saints. What we 
believe, was the creed of the church in those days, 
when there were tongues of fire and hearts all zeal, 
when the word was quick and powerful, when the 
disciples offered their all upon the altar of their faith, 
and multitudes of such as should be saved were daily 
added to the company of the believers. "Why may 
not the same creed bear like fruits now, and among 
lis ? May it not, God helping, if we are faithful to 
our light ? Let us not, if we think that we have the 
truth, idly boast of our superior discernment ; for it 
only makes our negligence and sluggishness the more 
blameworthy. Were we blind, we should have less 
sin. But now that we say, We see, our sin remains. 
If we have the light, let us walk as children of the 



THE DIVINE NATURE. 31 

light. If we deem ourselves, in our views of reli- 
gious doctrine, more faithful than our fellow christians 
to the sublime declaration of Moses, ' The Lord our 
God is one Lord,' let us be no less faithful to the 
commandment, which he annexes to that declaration, 
— ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' 



LECTURE II. 



JESUS CHRIST. 



JOHN XIV. 28. 

MY FATHER IS GREATER THAN I. 

The question of the supreme divinity of Jesus 
Christ will be my subject, this evening. I shall 
reserve for the next lecture, an explicit statement of 
my own vie wg. with reference to our Savior's personal 
rank and character, and I shall now confine myself 
to the simple question : Was Jesus of Nazareth identi- 
cal with the Almighty Creator ? 

Before entering upon my subject, suffer me to make 
one preliminary remark. There are two modes em- 
ployed in proving doctrines from the Bible. One is the 
quotation of single texts, without reference to the con- 
text, or to the analogy of other portions of scripture. 
The other is based upon the comparison of a text 
with its context, and of scripture with scripture ; and 
has reference rather to the general tone and spirit of 
the sacred writings, or of particular books, and passa- 



JESUS CHRIST. 33 

ges, than to insulated words and phrases. The latter, 
I hardly need say, is the only true mode. By the 
former, any and every doctrine might be established ; 
and its use has, in fact, led to most of the broad differ- 
ences among christians, and of the exceedingly wide 
departures from ' the simplicity that is in Christ' No 
book in the world could bear such rules and modes of 
interpretation, as have been applied to the Bible. In 
all books, except scientific treatises, free use is made 
of metaphor and hyperbole, which are always defined 
and limited, by what goes before, and what follows, 
but which, taken by themselves and explained liter- 
ally, would imply the most puerile and absurd notions. 
Now the fashion among theologians has been, to set 
up the seeming signification of some three or four 
isolated clauses in the Bible, as overweighing the 
clear and acknowledged tenor of the entire scriptures, 
as if the inspired writers could have failed to recog- 
nize constantly, and to state explicitly, any fundamen- 
tal doctrine of the religion, which they taught. 

I can best illustrate the prevalent mode of scriptural 
interpretation, by supposing a case. Suppose that, 
fifteen or twenty centuries hence, there should be 
remaining some two or three authentic biographies of 
Napoleon Bonaparte. Suppose that in one of these, 
written by an admiring Frenchman, it should be said of 
him : ' He was a very God among his soldiers, w ador- 



34 JESUS CHRIST. 

ing millions prostrated themselves before him, — he 
took in the nations of the earth at a glance, — his will 
was omnipotent.' Suppose that in another of these 
biographies, written by a bigoted English tory, it 
should be said of him : ' He was a very fiend incar- 
nate, — the prince of darkness never let loose upon 
earth a more fearful angel of destruction.' Suppose 
that, though, elsewhere throughout these books, 
Napoleon was perpetually talked of as a man, and 
the books, taken as a whole, made utter nonsense 
upon the supposition that he was not a man, there 
yet should arise a set of critics, who maintained that 
Napoleon was a divine being, and another set, who 
maintained that he was a demon, — these two classes 
of critics would aptly represent the generality of 
modern theologians and biblical interpreters. 

The true mode of interpretation obviously is, first 
to get at the general tone and spirit of the book, or 
books, which we wish to interpret, and then, when 
we find a passage of difficult, doubtful, or am- 
biguous signification, to seek for it the interpretation, 
or to give it that one of several possible interpreta- 
tions, which best accords with the tone and spirit of 
the whole. Thus, if the entire New Testament from 
beginning to end, if every discourse of our Savior, if 
every exposition of christian doctrine made by the 
apostles, if the whole tone of scriptural phraseology, 



JESUS CHRIST. 35 

declares, or necessarily implies, the inferiority of the 
Son to the Father, and yet there are some half-dozen, 
or more, single texts, which seem to teach his supreme 
divinity, but admit of a different interpretation, I con- 
tend, that we are bound to interpret these texts in 
accordance with the voice of scripture, taken collect- 
ively ; and I also maintain that, where there is any 
reasonable doubt with regard to the reading, or the 
punctuation of a passage, we are bound to prefer that 
reading, or that mode of punctuation, which best 
accords with the rest of the New Testament. 

But let me not be misunderstood. I by no means 
say that half a dozen texts, or even a single text, 
of scripture, may not be sufficient to establish a reli- 
gious doctrine. On the other hand, there are subjects 
spoken of but once or twice, on which I derive as 
definite and firm an opinion, from one or two texts, 
as I should from a volume. And if our Savior were 
named but six times, or but once, in a series of 
books proffering the claims to plenary and conclu- 
sive authority, which, hi my view, the New Testa- 
ment proffers, and if, each of those six times, or that 
once, he were spoken of as the supreme God, I 
should then believe him to be the supreme God. 
But the case is very different. He speaks of himself, 
and is spoken of, many hundred times, hi the New 
Testament. Take away some half-dozen, or, at most, 



36 JESUS CHRIST, 

a very few of these texts, and no one will contend 
that there remains a single case, in which the phrase- 
ology does not necessarily imply inferiority to the 
eternal Father. These few texts, as I interpret them, 
imply no other doctrine. But yet my Trinitarian 
brethren contend that they teach our Savior's 
supreme divinity. Admitting, for the moment, that 
such were their most obvious meaning, the question 
is, whether they ought to outweigh the hundreds of 
texts that teach a different doctrine. Christ cannot 
be both a self-existent and a created being, both God 
and the Son of God, both equal and inferior to the 
Father. And if he, many hundreds of times, calls 
himself, and is called by his authorized interpreters, 
a created being, the Son of God, and inferior to the 
Father, then it seems to me that the few texts, which 
might bear a different meaning, ought to be inter- 
preted in accordance with these hundreds of texts. 
With this general statement of facts in the case, I 
presume that no Trinitarian would find fault. But 
the Trinitarian would maintain that the hundreds of 
texts ought to be interpreted by the few. 

These tilings premised, I now proceed to exhibit 
the chief reasons, why I find myself constrained to 
regard our Savior as a created and subordinate being. 

In the first place, our Savior never declares himself 
the supreme God, in any of the discourses or conver- 



JESUS CHRIST. 37 

sations recorded in the gospels. This is not a doctrine, 
for which it is common to appeal to our Savior's own 
words ; and yet, often as he spake of himself, and 
plain and confidential as was his intercourse with his 
disciples during the last scenes of his life, it hardly 
seems possible that he should have left them without 
a hint of his true nature and glory. I know of but 
two of his own sayings, which are ever quoted as 
referring to his supreme divinity ; and I doubt whether 
these would be quoted in a serious argument. One 
of these is, ' I and my Father are one,'* which he 
sufficiently explains, when he afterwards prays for his 
disciples, ' that they may be one, even as we are 
one.'f The other is, ' He that hath seen me, hath 
seen the Father,'! which, in the next verse, he ex- 
plains by saying, ' Believest thou not that I am in 
the Father, and the Father in me ? ' I am astonished 
that this should ever have been regarded as a Trinita- 
rian proof-text. I know not a more decidedly anti- 
Trinitarian text in the Bible. For, if there be three 
distinct persons in the Godhead, seeing one of them, 
is surely not seeing the other, — seeing the Father is 
not seeing the Son. But if, as Unitarians believe, 
Christ dwelt in God, and God in him, if Christ was 
the image, the representative of the Father, then he, 

* John x. 30. f John xvii. 22. J John xiv, 9, 

4 



38 JESUS CHRIST. 

who had seen him, had seen the Father, — he, who 
had been conversant with the image, had become 
acquainted with the attributes of the original. 

If our Savior were indeed the supreme God, a 
fact, no less striking and unaccountable than his own 
silence on the subject, is, that the apostles did not 
proclaim him as God in their preaching to the unbeliev- 
ing Jews and Gentiles. The cross, the ignominy, the 
lowly and suffering estate of Jesus, was the great 
stumbling-block to those, among whom they preach- 
ed ; and it was, therefore, a prime object with them 
to extol and exalt him, to set forth his claims 
upon the reverence of man, and to exhibit his intrinsic 
greatness and excellence. Was he, who was despised 
and rejected of men, indeed the Lord God almighty? 
Of this fact, then, before all things else, would Peter 
have assured the unbelieving Jews, and Paul the 
inquisitive and credulous Athenians. This doctrine, 
so momentous, could not have been suppressed in 
preaching, to such a degree, as not once to find its 
way into the numerous discourses contained in the 
Acts of the Apostles. If Peter and Paul did not 
preach it, they cannot have believed it. If they did 
preach it, the eminently careful, faithful historian, St. 
Luke, could not have omitted this most prominent 
and striking point in their preaching. 

I now offer you a consideration of very great, and, 



JESUS CHRIST. 39 

It seems to me, decisive weight. If our Savior were 
the almighty Creator, there was a time when his 
disciples first became aware of the fact ; for they 
could not have believed it from the begimiing. When 
Peter rebuked him, when they all forsook him, when 
they went weeping to his sepulchre, they could not 
have regarded him as God. Now, whenever they 
learned the fact of his supreme divinity, it must have 
wrought a marvellous and entire change in their 
feelings and conduct, — it must have created the 
most strongly marked epoch in the experience of their 
lives. It must have been with the utmost awe, with 
emotions of overpowering fulness, that they ascertain- 
ed that the Creator of all worlds had been dwelling 
with them, calling them his brethren, and submitting 
to their petulant and inconstant humors, — had broken 
bread for them, and even washed their feet. Must 
not such a stupendous discovery have left some trace 
of itself in the sacred record ? Could it have taken 
place, without at least some notice of the time when, 
and the circumstances under which it was made ? 
Did they first become aware of this fact after his 
resurrection ? How then can we account for their 
preserving their former familiar, fraternal style of 
intercourse with him till the morning of the ascen- 
sion ? And yet their conversation with him on that 
very morning, differs not in the least, as to its general 



40 JESUS CHRIST. 

tone and character, from those which they had held 
with him before his death. Or was it on the day of 
Pentecost that this amazing fact first became known 
to them? If so, would not Peter's discourse have 
been full of this new revelation ? Could he have so 
entirely veiled the light that had just burst upon him, 
as coolly to commence his discourse, ' Jesus of Naza- 
reth, a man approved of God among you, by miracles, 
and wonders, and signs, which God did by him,' and 
to utter not a single word, which the most astute 
critic can torture into a recognition of the deity of 
Christ ? But it is impossible for the Trinitarian to 
say when the apostles were first apprized of this 
truth ; nor is there, in the gospels or the Acts of the 
Apostles, the faintest trace of such a discovery's 
having been made at any time. Now I could more 
easily account for the omission of all notice of our 
Savior's birth, or death, or resurrection, or ascension, 
than for the omission of the announcement of this, — 
the most amazing and momentous fact of all, — in- 
deed, the most interesting and important fact in the 
world's whole history. 

I next remark, that the whole phraseology of the 
New Testament with regard to our Savior implies 
his created existence, and subordinate rank. In the 
first place, he is constantly called the Son of God. 
The word Son, as applied to him, either has, or has 



JESUS CHRIST. 41 

not, a meaning. If it has no meaning, then must it 
have been employed by our Savior and his apostles in 
idle mockery of man's understanding, — a supposition 
unworthy to be entertained for a moment, and yet 
one, which our Trinitarian brethren cannot, it seems 
to me, entirely disavow. But if the word Son does 
mean anything, the least that it can imply is, that the 
Son owes his existence to the Father, therefore is 
not self- existent, did not then exist from all eternity, 
and consequently is not God. 

I would next advert to the mode, in which our 
Savior uniformly speaks of himself. Here are some 
of his declarations, which I might multiply indefinitely : 
1 My Father is greater than I.'* ' I can of mine own 
self do nothing.'! ' The words that I speak unto 
you, I speak not of myself: but the Father, that 
dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.' $ ' I proceeded 
forth and came from God ; neither came I of myself, 
but he sent me.'§ ' My meat is to do the will of him 
that sent me 'II 'Of that day and that hour knoweth 
no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, 
neither the Son, but the Father.'IF ' God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only begotten Son.'** ' Why 
callest thou me good ? there is none good but one, 

*Johnxiv. 28 f John v. 30. % John xiv. 10. 

§ John viii. 42. || John iv. 34. „ \ Mark xiii. 32. 

** John hi. 16. 
4# 



42 JESUS CHRIST. 

that is, God.'^ ' I ascend unto my Father and yonr 
Father, and to my God and your God.'f But I might 
go on in this way, and quote from every chapter in 
the gospels, and from every verse in which our Savior 
speaks, and show you every attribute of supreme 
divinity disclaimed, over and over again, from his 
own lips, without your being able to point to a single 
instance, in which he claims for himself any exclu- 
sively divine attribute. I might, also, show him to 
you praying to his Father, spending whole nights 
in supplication to Him, beseeching Him, if possible, to 
take from him the cup of death, and commending his 
departing spirit into the Father's hands. 

Is it said that Christ spoke and did thus in his 
human nature ? To this I reply, in the first place, 
that the doctrine of the two natures of Christ is not 
claimed, even by its advocates, as a doctrine of reve- 
lation. They quote no declaration, or passage of 
scripture, in which they profess to find this doctrine 
expressed or implied. It is confessedly a hypothesis, 
which they have assumed as the only mode, in which 
they can reconcile Christ's supreme divinity with his 
own reiterated assertions to the contrary. 

But this hypothesis of the two natures is far from 
obviating the difficulty, which it was designed to re- 
move. If Christ be the supreme God, and if it be 

* Matthew xix. 17. f John xx. 17. 



JESUS CHRIST. 43 

of any importance for mankind to know the fact, it 
was of equal importance for him to have made the 
fact known, nor can there have been any adequate 
reason for his concealing it. Moreover, those, who 
maintain the doctrine of two natures, virtually charge 
our Savior with equivocation. For does not the word 
/include the whole of the person speaking? I my- 
self am composed of body and mind. I know that 
five and five are ten. My body does not know it ; but 
my mind knows it. Now suppose that I should say, 
1 1 do not know how much five and five are,' and 
should afterwards explain myself by saying, ' My 
body does not know it, and, when I spoke, I had 
reference to my body,' what would you think of my 
honesty, or good sense ? You would certainly infer 
that I had made utter shipwreck of one or the other. 
Or suppose that I should say, ' I am unable to lift this 
manuscript,' and, when you looked to see if I were 
smitten with a sudden paralysis, I should add, ' I only 
mean that my mind cannot lift it, — my body can/ 
you would surely regard my speech as anything but 
wise, and my intellect as anything but sane. Yet 
such is the imputation, which the doctrine of the two 
natures casts upon our Savior ; and his exalted mis- 
sion, and the momentous subjects on which he spoke, 
only render the imputation more gross and unworthy. 
If our Savior was the supreme God, he knew the 



44 JESUS CHRIST. 

day and hour, which he said that he did not know, — 
he had in himself the power to perform those works, 
which he said that he could not perform of himself, 
— he was the equal of the father, whom he called 
greater than himself; and there remains no way, in 
which you can interpret these essentially false decla- 
rations from his lips, without casting reproach upon 
him, in whose pure and transparent spirit I believe 
that there was no guile. I press this point the more 
urgently, because to my eye the doctrine of our 
Savior's supreme divinity renders all his recorded 
discourses a tissue of prevarication, fitted only to 
bewilder and mislead his hearers. 

The hypothesis of the two natures also fails, inas- 
much as Christ expressly disclaims the peculiar attri- 
butes of deity in some of those relations and offices, 
which it is contended that he fills by virtue of his 
divine nature. I know not how often I have seen 
and heard the number, variety, and magnitude of his 
miracles, and his sovereign sway over diseases and 
the elements, cited as demonstrative proof of his 
supreme divinity. But it is of these very miracles 
that he says : ' The works that I do, bear witness of 
me, that the Father hath sent me.'* It is often said 
also, that none but God can be the final judge of 
man ; and Christ's designated office as judge of the 

* John v. 36. 



JESUS C HRI S T. 45 

living and the dead is referred to in every defence of 
the Trinity, as proof positive of his supreme divinity. 
But of this office he says, ' The Father hath committed 
all judgment unto the Son ; ' and, a few sentences 
afterwards, assigns not his deity, nor even Iris close 
connection with the Father, but, on the other hand, 
his relationship to man, as the reason why he is ap- 
pointed man's judge, — ' He hath given him authority 
to execute judgment also, because he is the So?i of 
man.'* 

"We have then our Savior's uniform and often re- 
peated testimony to his own created existence and 
subordinate rank, in maintaining which we cannot 
surely be guilty of denying the Lord Jesus, inasmuch 
as we fasten our faith upon his own words. 

Do we look to the rest of the New Testament ? 
"We still find our Savior spoken of as a created and 
subordinate being. ' Him hath God ordained,' — • Him 
hath God raised up,' — ' Him hath God set forth/ — is 
the burden of the apostolic preaching. How many 
times do the apostles designate the Almighty as the 
God, or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Says 
St. Paul, ' There is one God, and one mediator be- 
tween God and men, the man Christ Jesus.'f And 
again, ' Ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.'-t Says 
St. John, ' God loved us, and sent Ins Son to be the 

* John v. 22, 27. | 1 Timothy ii. 5. \ 1 Corinthians Hi. 23. 



46 JESUS CHRIST. 

propitiation for our sins ; ' and again, in the same 
chapter, ' The Father sent the Son to be the Savior 
of the world.'* The apostles speak also of Christ, in 
his glorified state, as making intercession for his 
church. ' Who also maketh intercession for us.'f ' If 
any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, 
Jesus Christ the righteous.' $ If Christ be God, to 
whom does he pray ? 

The apostles speak of Christ as subordinate to the 
Father, even in those passages, in which they ascribe 
to him the highest exaltation and glory, nay, in the 
very passages, which are currently quoted in proof 
of his supreme divinity on the alleged ground, that 
such honor can be rendered to no created being. 
Take this passage for instance, — ' "Wherefore God 
also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name 
which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus 
every knee should bow, of tilings in heaven, and 
things in earth, and tilings under the earth, and that 
every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord 
to the glory of God the Father.' § God hath exalted 
him, — God hath given him a name, — to the glory of 
God the Father ; — how could his derived and subor- 
dinate nature have been more strongly expressed ? 

There is a passage in one of St. Paul's epistles to 

* 1 John iv. 10, 14. t Roman viii. 34. 

% 1 John ii. 1. $ Philippians ii. 9-11. 



JESUS CHRIST. 47 

the Corinthians, where the extent and universality of 
Christ's reign are spoken of in more ample and lofty 
terms than anywhere else in the New Testament; 
but, as if to preclude the inference of his independent 
and supreme divinity, the apostle adds : ' When all 
things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son 
also himself be subject unto him that put all tilings 
under him, that God may be all in all.'* 

I might also quote that passage in the epistle to 
the Hebrews, where God is represented as saying to 
Christ, in language borrowed from the Old Testa- 
ment, (in which a more free use is made of the word 
God than in the New,) ■ Thy throne, O God, is for 
ever and ever ; ' but it is added, ' God, even thy God, 
hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy 
fellows,'! — a passage, which suggests the inquiry, — 
if Christ was the supreme God, who was his God, 
who were his fellows, and who anointed him ? And 
throughout the introduction of this epistle, in which 
it seems the writers sole object to heap the praises 
of a pious and grateful heart upon the glorified Re- 
deemer, we have multiplied recognitions of his subor- 
dinate rank with reference to the Father. ' Whom 
he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he 
made the worlds.'! ' It became him, for whom are 
all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing 

* 1 Corinthians xv. 24-28. f Hebrews i. S, 9. % Hebrews i. 2. 



48 JESUS CHRIST. 

many sons unto glory, to make the captain of thei/r 
salvation perfect through sufferings ; for both lie that 
sanctifieth, and they that are sanctified, are all of 
one : for which cause he is not ashamed to call them 
brethren; saying, I will declare thy name unto my 
brethren: in the midst of the church will I sing praise 
unto thee. And again, Iivillput my trust in him. And 
again, Behold, I, and the children which God loath 

given me In all things it behoved him to 

be made like unto his brethren In that 

he himself hath suffered, being temp>ted, he is able 
to succor them that are tempted.'* Now all these 
things may be said of the most highly exalted of 
God's children ; but surely not of God himself. Men 
are not God's brethren. God cannot sing praise to 
himself. God cannot be tempted ; nor can he have 
been made perfect through suffering. 

In the epistle to the Colossians, where it is said of 
Christ, that ' by him were all things created that are 
in heaven, and that are in earth,' and that ' he is be- 
fore all tilings,' he is in the same sentence styled, not 
the Uncreated, but 'the first-born of every creature,' 
therefore not self- existent, and consequently not 
God.f 

In the Apocalypse, where the highest titles and 
honors are given to the Savior, and where the rapt 

* Hebrews ii. 10-18 f Colossians i. 15-17. 



JESUS C HRIS T. 49 

apostle sees the ransomed hosts casting down their 
crowns before him, he is still represented as a created 
being. Though he styles himself ' Alpha and Omega, 
the first and the last,' # he still indicates that these 
expressions denote not the uncreated source of being, 
but the first-born Son ; for he afterwards calls himself 
' the beginning of the creation of God.' t And again, 
while the redeemed are represented as assigning for 
the reason of then praise to the Father, ' Thou hast 
created all tilings, and for thy pleasure they are and 
were created ; ' % to the Son then words are, e Thou 
ivast slain, and hast redeemed us unto God by thy 
blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, 
and nation, and hast made us unto our God, kings 
and priests,' h — an ascription, of which every candid 
mind must see at once that the supreme God cannot 
be the subject 

I next remark that Christ did not present himself 
as an object of adoration, and that he commanded his 
disciples to offer prayer, not to himself, but to his 
Father. I know not what could be more explicit 
than the following passage, where, speaking of the 
time when he should no longer be with his disciples, 
he says to them : ' In that day ye shall ask me 
no tiling. Verily, verily, I say unto you, whatsoever 



* Revelation i. 11. t Ibid. iii. 14 

$ Ibid. iv. 11. % Ibid. v. 9, 10. 

5 



60 JESUS CHRIST. 

ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it 
you.' # 

In accordance with these words of their Master, all 
the recorded prayers of the apostles are directed to 
God, generally through Christ, or in his name ; nor 
do they, in a single instance, exhort their converts to 
pray or to give thanks to Jesus, but to God the 
Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The 
only case, I believe, in which authority for prayer to 
Christ is drawn from the New Testament, is that of 
the dying Stephen, when he said, ' Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spirit.'! But this was not prayer. This 
was not an address to an invisible being. It was 
speaking to one whom he saw. The heavens were 
opened, and he saw ' Jesus standing on the right 
hand of God.' He had a vision of the risen Savior, 
with a countenance and gesture of welcome for his 
dying servant. He thus commended his spirit to one, 
who had personally appeared, to lead him through 
the dark valley to the mansion of eternal rest. 

One word more concerning this text. In our com- 
mon Bible, it reads, ' They stoned Stephen, calling 
upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' 
But you will see that the word God is printed in 
italics. In this type are printed those words in the 

* John xvi. 23. f Acts vii. 59. 



JESUS CHRIS T. 51 

translation, which have no corresponding words in 
the original, but which the translators saw fit to 
supply. There are many, I suppose, who do not 
know what the italics hi the Bible mean ; and the 
explanation of them ought to be printed in every 
copy. This text, omitting the word inserted by the 
translators, would read : ' They stoned Stephen, 
calling upon, or invoking, (of course the person last 
named, and that is Jesus,) and saying, Lord Jesus, 
receive my spirit.' There is another instance, in 
which our translators have inserted the same word 
God. It is this : ' Hereby perceive we the love of 
God, because he laid down his life for us/ # The 
words, of God, are in italics, and have nothing corres- 
ponding to them in the original, which, literally ren- 
dered, reads, ' Hereby perceive we love, because he 
laid down his life for us.' 

But, to return from this digression, there is not, in 
the New Testament, a single instance of prayer to 
Jesus, nor is there a single case, in which homage is 
paid to him in the way in which it is paid to God. 
There are indeed many ascriptions of praise to him ; 
but they are always accompanied with the specific 
designation of his work and office as Mediator, and 
generally with an express reference to the eternal 

* 1 John Ui. 16. 



52 JESUS CHRIST. 

Father as alone supreme. But there are several in- 
stances, in which persons are said to have worshipped 
Jesus. The word translated tvorship, however, does 
not necessarily denote the rendering of divine honors, 
but simply prostration, or other external marks of 
homage or reverence, such as are paid by inferiors to 
superiors, by subjects to princes, and by servants to 
masters. For instance, the servant in the parable, 
who owed a thousand talents, fell down at his mas- 
ter's feet, 'and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have 
patience with me and I will pay thee all.' # Indeed, 
most of these cases of worship or prostration before 
our Savior, were cases of suppliants asking favors of 
him, at a time when, it is generally contended by 
Trinitarians, our Savior's supreme divinity had not 
yet been made known. 

Such is the state of facts with reference to the re- 
cognition of our Savior's supreme divinity by the 
apostles, in appropriate acts of devotion. Now, that 
neither prayer nor divine honors should have been 
rendered to our Savior by his apostles seems to me 
entirely unaccountable, if he were properly the sub- 
ject of them. It is equally unaccountable, that, if 
they had been rendered, no instance of the kind 
should have remained on record in the New Testa- 
ment. And still more strange is it, that, if Jesus be 

* Matthew xviii. 26. 



JESUS CHRIST. 53 

the supreme God, he himself should not only have 
omitted to enjoin, but should have expressly forbid- 
den, prayer to himself, and should have prescribed a 
mode of prayer, in winch he was indeed to be recog- 
nized as the Mediator, but not as the object of prayer. 

I will now ask your attention to some of the single 
texts urged by those who maintain the supreme deity 
of Christ. I do not intend, (for I have not time,) to 
bring forward all the proof-texts that have been urged 
or relied upon. But I shall choose those which seem 
to me the strongest, and those on which eminent 
Trinitarians have laid the most stress. I shall pur- 
posely omit only those, on which no independent 
reliance is placed, but which are brought forward as 
subsidiary to the argument based upon the others. 
And let me add, that, should I omit in this lecture the 
consideration of texts, which any of you desire to 
hear discussed, if you will name such texts to me, 
they shall be taken up in the next lecture. 

Those, who maintain the supreme divinity of our 
Savior, rest for this doctrine, if I am not mistaken, 
solely on single texts. They draw no argument from 
the general tone and spirit of the New Testament. 
They admit that the argument from this source, so 
far as it has any bearmg, goes against them. But 
they deem it overborne by the clearness and weight 

5* 



54 JESUS CHRIST. 

of the single texts, which they quote in behalf of 
then* dogma. 

Of these texts, I set aside, as having no bearing on 
the doctrine in question, those, which simply teach 
our Savior's continued presence with his church, and 
his power over the spiritual creation of God ; for 
these are truths, of which I entertain not the slighest 
doubt ; they imply no more than a headship over the 
church, conferred by the Father, and are but the ful- 
filment of those words of our Savior, ' All power is 
given unto me in heaven and in earth.' # Is given, — 
given then by the Being, to whom it of right belonged, 
and who is as competent to constitute the ascended 
Redeemer, head of the whole spiritual family above 
and below, as to make you and me, fathers and 
heads of our own little households. Nor need we 
here consider those texts, which imply, or seem to 
imply, our Savior's preexistence ; for the question, 
whether he existed before his birth in Bethlehem, is 
entirely independent of that of his supreme divinity. 

The only text from the Old Testament, much relied 
on by the advocates of the doctrine in question, is 
this from Isaiah : ' Unto us a child is born, unto us a 
son is given : and the government shall be upon his 
shoulder : and his name shall be called Wonderful, 
Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, 

* Matthew xxvii. 18. 



JESUS CHRIST. 55 

the Prince of Peace,' # In this text, the Hebrew 
word rendered God, is not Elohim, the word com- 
monly so rendered ; but El, of which God is only a 
secondary meaning. The Hebrew Lexicons give for 
its meaning, first, (as an adjective,) strong, mighty ; 
secondly, (as an abstract noun,) strength, power ; and 
thirdly and often, (by a natural transfer from an ab- 
stract to a concrete sense,) God. Our translators 
chose the last of the three meanings. I am disposed 
to think the first the true signification here, and 
should render the passage : ' He shall be called Won- 
derful, Counsellor, Strong, Mighty, Father of eternity, 
that is, Author of eternal life, (or, perhaps, Father or 
Author of an age, — a new age or dispensation,) 
Prince of Peace.' 

Another text much relied on is from the epistle to 
the Philippians : ' Let this mind be in you, winch was 
also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, 
thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; but made 
himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form 
of a servant.' t The true sense of this passage, ac- 
cording to many Trinitarian commentators, is this : 
1 Let the same mind be in you, which was also in 
Christ Jesus, who, though hi the form, the image of 
God, yet did not covet to appear as God, that is, did 
not exalt or magnify himself; but, on the other hand, 

* Isaiah ix. 6. f Philippians ii. 5-7. 



56 JESUS CHRIST. 

humbled himself, and took upon him the form of a 
servant.'. But, however this passage may be inter- 
preted, any possible inference from it in favor of the 
supreme divinity of Christ is negatived by the sequel 
of the sentence, in which the apostle says that, on 
account of his thus humbling himself, ' God has 
highly exalted him, and has given him a name above 
every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, .... to the glory of God the 
Father' 

Another important text is this from the epistle to 
the Romans : ' Whose are the fathers, and of whom, 
as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, 
God blessed forever. Amen.' * The New Testa- 
ment, like all books of that age, was originally writ- 
ten without stops, and without division of sentences. 
The stops have been inserted, and the sentences 
divided in comparatively recent times. I suppose, in 
common with many very eminent biblical critics, that, 
in this passage, there should be a full stop after the 
words, over all; and that the words, ' God be blessed 
forever, — Amen,' were added as a doxology by the 
apostle, in the way, in which, in several instances, he 
has inserted a doxology in the midst of a paragraph. 

The exclamation of Thomas, when he recognized 
his risen Master, ' My Lord and my God,' t is quoted 
* Romans ix. 5. t John xx. 28. 



JESUS CHRIST. 57 

as a proof-text for the doctrine under discussion, 
though I am surprised that it should be. It was a 
mere exclamation of glad astonishment on the part of 
Thomas. It was not addressed to Christ ; for it is 
not hi the vocative case, which is used in the Greek 
when a person is spoken to. The words Lord and 
God are both in the nominative case. The sentence 
is elliptical ; and, were we to supply the ellipsis, it 
would, as I suppose, read thus : ' It is my Lord and 
my God, that has brought this glorious event to pass.' 
But it was an abrupt, fragmentary exclamation, such 
as would naturally spring from overwhelming sur- 
prise, — not profane, because uttered in deep solemni- 
ty and awe, and in clear recognition of the divine 
hand, which had raised his Master from the dead. It 
was the most natural of all exclamations under the 
circumstances, in which it was uttered. Suppose that 
some one, whom we knew to have been long dead, 
should stand forth here in the presence of us all, 
would not the exclamation, My God, be the solemn, 
fervent, heart-stricken utterance of every one present ? 
That any argument should ever have been based 
upon this exclamation seems to me excessively 
strange, when I consider the whole connection in 
which it stands. Thomas had, a moment before, ex- 
pressed his entire unbelief as to the identity of his 
Master. Jesus then shewed him his wounds, to con.- 



58 JESUS CHRIST. 

vince him of his identity. This was all that he 
undertook to prove to Thomas, and all that the 
wounds could prove. Now, if Thomas had ever be- 
lieved Christ to be God, he would never have doubted 
his power to rise from the dead. His scepticism with 
regard to the resurrection, proves that he had not pre- 
viously believed that Christ was God. But Christ's 
resurrection no more proved him to be God, than the 
rising of Lazarus proved him to be God. Thomas 
had therefore had no proof of his Master's supreme 
divinity presented to his mind ; and one, so slow to 
believe as he was, could hardly have leaped to so 
momentous a conclusion, without something on which 
to base it. 

The next passage, to which I shall refer, is this 
from the first epistle to Timothy : ' Without contro- 
versy, great is the mystery of godliness : God was 
manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of 
angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the 
world, received into glory. 9 * There is much dis- 
crepancy with regard to the reading of this passage 
among the early manuscripts and versions ; but, to my 
mind, the balance of argument is in favor of the 
common reading, and the text conveys to my 
apprehension, nothing, which I do not gladly believe 
and embrace. Nay, I would adopt the passage as 

* 1 Timothy iii. 16. 



JESUS CHRIST, 59 

embodying my confession of faith with regard to Jesus 
Christ. I joyfully and thankfully acknowledge, that, 
in the person, in the moral attributes, in the unquench- 
able love of Jesus, God ivas manifest in the flesh, — 
that he was justified, that is, had false notions and 
sentiments concerning himself uprooted, and true 
ideas and feelings implanted among men, through the 
workings of his spirit, — that angels beheld with adora- 
tion this display of divine wisdom and love, — that 
God thus manifested was proclaimed to the Gentiles, — 
believed on in the world, — received in glory, (for such 
is the literal rendering of the words,) that is, gloriously 
received and welcomed in the hearts of Christ's true 
disciples. 

In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Paul bids the 
Ephesian elders to ' feed the church of God, which 
he hath purchased with his own blood.'* Lord occurs 
here instead of God in many of the earlier manu- 
scripts and versions, and is deemed the true reading 
by the best critics. But I will take the text as it 
stands, and will seek no advantage from the difference 
of reading. Now, were it the general voice of the 
New Testament that the supreme God suffered, and 
died, and shed his blood upon the cross, I should 
certainly interpret this text as referring to his death. 

* Acts XX. 28. 



60 JESUS CHRIST. 

But, the contrary being the voice of the New Testa- 
ment, if I admit the common reading of this passage, 
I must interpret it in accordance with what I know 
St. Paul to have believed and taught. Now St. Paul 
uniformly taught that ' God spared not his own Son, 
but delivered him up for us all;' and I must, there- 
fore, suppose blood, in the passage under discussion, 
to denote Son, as it does, in common with the word 
flesh, in all languages, both ancient and modern. ' He 
hath purchased with his own blood? that is, with his 
own Son. 

I now ask your attention, for a few moments, to 
the introduction of St. John's gospel. In order to 
understand this, we must look at the purpose for which 
St. John wrote his gospel. On this subject, we are 
fortunate in having, among others, a competent and 
unimpeachable witness in Irenseus, — a friend and 
pupil of Polycarp, who was a personal friend of St. 
John. It is the uniform testimony of antiquity, that 
St. John wrote his gospel after the other three, and 
at Ephesus, — the head-quarters of the Gnostic 
heresy, which was the first wide departure from the 
simplicity of the christian faith ; and Irenseus says, 
that the beloved disciple wrote his gospel for the 
express purpose of refuting the false and absurd 
notions, which the Gnostics were beginning to spread 
in Asia Minor. It concerns us then to know what the 



JESUS CHRIST. 61 

Gnostics believed. They engrafted upon the christian 
faith a hybrid philosophy, or, to speak more correctly, 
they engrafted some few christian phrases and ideas 
upon a hybrid philosophy, in which Platonism was 
blended with the oriental mysticism. They maintained 
that the supreme God dwelt in the remote heavens, 
surrounded by chosen spirits, or JEons, (as they called 
them,) and gave himself very little concern with what 
took place upon earth ; that the world was created 
by an inferior and imperfect being, who was also the 
author of the Jewish dispensation ; that Christ was 
sent by the supreme God to deliver men from the 
tyranny of this creator, and from the yoke of his 
law ; that there were also various created spirits, or 
JEons, sustaining different offices, independently for 
the most part, of the supreme Deity, the names of 
some of which JEons were Life, Light, and, particu- 
larly, the Logos or Word, which represented the divine 
Reason or Wisdom ; and that the JEon Light became 
incarnate in John the Baptist. All these spiritual 
existences were represented as distinct from each 
other, and from the supreme God, so that the system 
was a sublimated form of polytheism. To fuse these 
disjointed fragments of deity into one, — to rebuke 
these babblings of philosophy, falsely so called, about 
a divided sceptre and a scattered divinity, — this was 
the purpose of St. John's introduction. And, not 
6 



62 JESUS CHRIST. 

only so ; but we find that the same pervading 
purpose gives shape, and character, and, as it were, 
the key-note, to his whole gospel. With this object 
in view, it was incumbent on him to show that Life, 
and Light, and the Logos or Word, were not distinct 
from the supreme God ; that the supreme God 
created the world, and gave the Jewish law ; that 
the same God sent John, the forerunner; and that the 
same God sent Jesus Christ, not to destroy, but to 
complete the law, — not to deliver men from its 
tyranny, but to finish for them the work, which the 
law had began. All this is shown in the first eighteen 
verses of the gospel, — how comprehensively and 
beautifully you will see, if you keep in mind what I 
have told you of the Gnostic notions, while I read the 
passage to you, with such explanations as may be 
requisite. 

Ln the beginning teas the Word, the Logos, the 
divine Reason or Wisdom, — not a created bemg, nor 
yet an emanation from the Supreme ; but it always 
existed, — the Word ivas with God, and never had 
a separate existence; and the Word was God, 
was and is inseparable from his essence and his 
attributes. The same Word, the same divine Wisdom, 
repeats the evangelist, teas in the beginning ivith God. 
And now St. John directs his attention to another of 
the Gnostic errors, namely, that of the world's having 



JESUS CHRIST. 63 

been created by an inferior divinity. All things, says St. 
John, were made by him, that is, by God, (not by the 
Word, — him refers to God, which is the nearest preced- 
ing noun to which it can refer. ) All things were made 
by the supreme God, and without him was not anything 
made that was made. In him also was Life ; and the Life 
was the Light of men. Life and Light are not distinct 
existences ; but God is the source of life, and, where 
it flows from him, light flows "with it. And the Light 
shines in darkness ; but the darkness comprehended it not. 
God has shed light upon men in the darkest times, 
though men have chosen darkness rather than light. 

There ivas a man sent from God, whose name ivas 
John. He came for a •witness, to bear testimony of the 
light, concerning the divine light, that all men through 
him might believe. He ivas not that Light, not him- 
self an iEon, a spiritual emanation, — he was a man, 
like other men; but ivas sent to bear witness of the 
Light. He, from whom he came, God, ivas the true 
Light, that enlightens every man that comes into the 
world. God had not removed himself from his crea- 
tion, had not dwelt apart in the remote heavens. 
He was already, he was always in the world, and the 
world had been made by him ; yet the world knew him 
not. He had come to his own, to the Jewish nation, 
his favored and covenant people ; but his own received 
him not, that is, as a nation, they had in general dis- 



64 JESUS CHRIST. 

owned and rejected him in heart and deed, though 
not in name. But to as many as received him, to the 
patriarchs and to the faithful among their posterity, 
to them, ivho believed on his name, he gave power to 
become the sons of God, his own spiritual children, 
born, not of blood, nor of the ivill of tlie flesh, nor of 
the will of man, (children, not in any human or 
earthly sense,) but of God. 

And, hi these latter days, the Word, the divine 
Wisdom, became flesh, and dwelt among men ; and 
we, I and my fellow-apostles, beheld its glory, — the 
glory of the only begotten, of the chosen Son, of the 
Father, fidl of mercy and of truth. 

John bore testimony concerning him, and cried, say- 
ing, this is he, ofivhom I said, He that cometh after me, 
has taken precedence of me ; for he ivas before me, — 
was my superior. And of his fulness, of the rich 
truth and mercy of the Word made flesh, have we 
all received; yet not, as false teachers now say, 
mercy instead of wrath, a silken instead of an iron 
yoke, but grace for grace, — one gracious dispensa- 
tion to supersede another. For the law was given 
through Moses, and that was a law of mercy, adapted 
to its own times ; but now mercy and truth for all 
times have come through Jesus Christ. No man has 
seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, ivho is in 
the bosom of the Father, he has declared him, — has 
made him known. 



JESUS CHRIST. 65 

Thus we see that the introduction of John's Gos- 
pel, so far from authorizing the breaking up of the 
divine nature into a plurality of persons, is a noble 
assertion and vindication of the divine unity, well 
worthy the pen of inspiration, — a passage, in which, 
as with a prophet's wand, he waves back to their na- 
tive nothingness the chimeras of an arrogant and 
impious philosophy. 

But I have spoken long enough, perhaps too long. 
I have shown you, as I trust, that the general tenor 
of the New Testament, and numberless express de- 
clarations of our Savior and his apostles, oblige us to 
regard him, though second only to the Father, as 
holding with reference to the Father, a derived ex- 
istence and a subordinate rank. I have heaped up 
an amount of testimony, which much more than con- 
vinces me, — which leaves my own mind, I can truly 
say, without the shadow of a doubt, — with a convic- 
tion, which has no room to grow stronger. I have 
also, I think, selected all the really strong and difficult 
texts alleged in proof of the opposite doctrine. Some 
of them, I confess, would have weight, were they not 
overborne by such an overwhelming amount of testi- 
mony on the other side. But not one of them 
requires, and some of them do not in my view admit, 
the interpretation, which favors the supreme divinity 
of Christ. 

6* 



66 JESUS C HRIS T. 

I now commend the subject to your own serious 
reflection and study. But, while you seek and prize 
just ideas of your Savior's rank and character, re- 
member that your truest knowledge of him is heart- 
knowledge, — that knowledge, which you can have 
only by being like him, -^ by following him, — by 
having ' Christ in you, the hope of glory.' 



LECTUEE III, 



JESUS CHRIST. 



MATTHEW XXII. 42. 
WHAT THINK YE OF CHRIST ? 

My two previous lectures have been devoted to 
the defence of the divine unity, in opposition to the 
unscriptural doctrines of the Trinity, and the supreme 
deity of Christ. The present lecture will be devoted 
to the explanation of my own views of the nature 
and character of Christ, with this reservation, that 
I shall omit all considerations bearing directly upon 
the atonement, which I shall make the subject of two 
distinct lectures at the close of the course, 

In the first place, I pretend not that the difference 
between our Trinitarian brethren and ourselves, as to 
the person of our Savior, is a slight one. I regard it 
indeed as not fundamental ; for we all alike look to 
God as the author of our pardon and our eternal life, 
— they supposing that God brought these blessings 
into the world in his own person, — «we, that he be- 



68 JESUS CHRIST. 

stowed them through the hand of a Mediator. But, 
however high the personal rank which we assign to 
our Savior, there is an infinite distance between God 
and the loftiest of created and finite beings ; and our 
Savior, if created and finite, was a Son of God and a 
brother of man, — titles, which he assumes, and uses 
freely with regard to himself, but which he could not 
have employed, had he been the supreme God. 

But while I deny the personal deity of Christ, I 
most firmly believe in his divinity, — in a divinity, 
created by a constant and full indwelling and inwork- 
ing of the Father in the Son. He was, in the highest 
possible degree, the sanctified, the empowered, the 
sent, the vicegerent, the representative of God. 

The scriptures place him before us under two lead- 
ing aspects, (which resolve themselves into one,) 
as the perfect image of God, and the perfect pattern of 
human virtue. 

First, as the perfect image of God. This is indica- 
ted in many passages of scripture, as, for instance, in 
the following: ' Being the brightness of God's glory, 
and the express image of his person.' # ' In him 
dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.' f 
1 He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.' % * The 
Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' § In the 

=* Hebrews i. 3. f Colossians ii. 9. 

$ John xiv. 9. § John i. 14. 



JESUS CHRIST. 69 

introduction of St. John's gospel, from which this last 
text is quoted, we have, it seems to me, the whole 
theory of our Savior's relation to God. There we are 
told, that the Word, the divine Reason or Wisdom, 
— the same divine attributes, which had been mani- 
fested in creation and in the whole course of provi- 
dence, — assumed a human form, and dwelt among 
men in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. We are also 
told in the same connection, why this manifestation 
of the Deity took place. ' God was in the world, and 
the world was made by him, and the world knew 
him not.' His power and his love were enslirined in 
all the forms, and uttered themselves in all the voices 
of outward nature, — the heavens and the earth were 
full of them ; but they were diffused over too wide a 
surface, for man anywhere to take in a clear and sat- 
isfying view of them. Man saw the rays of divinity ; 
but could not trace them to their source. The attri- 
butes of God were in the universe, as we may sup- 
pose light to have been before the sun was made, 
spread everywhere, but concentrated nowhere. But, 
as God placed in the centre of our system a vast urn, 
to which men should look as the prime source of light, 
and brought together there, and caused to stream from 
thence, the rays, which before had mingled, and 
crossed each other from every point of the horizon, — 
so, in the moral firmament, did he kindle Jesus as the 



70 JESUS CHRIST. 

sun of righteousness, and combined and concentrated 
in his person rays of divinity, which, though shed all 
over creation, had never been brought together on 
earth before. We see in Jesus as much of God as 
can be made manifest in a created being, — the ful- 
ness of the Godhead in the flesh, — the outermost 
limit of the finite, — the nearest approach to the 
infinite. 

But here there is an obvious distinction to be made 
between God's 'physical and his moral attributes. By 
the physical, we denote power and ivisdom, to which 
alone the word infinite can be applied with precision. 
These, of course, cannot belong in their entire fulness 
to any subordinate being; for, if any being possessed 
them, the possession of them would make him God. 
Our Savior expressly disclaims them, when he says, 
' I can of mine own self do nothing,' and when he 
speaks of himself as ignorant of the day and hour, 
which the Father knew. The highest possible power 
and wisdom of a created being must needs be finite, 
and must therefore fall infinitely short of those attri- 
butes as they exist in God. Yet of these attributes, 
of the divine omnipotence and omniscience, our 
Savior bore the express image. He wrought the 
works, and uttered the words of God. He took the 
things of God, and shewed them to men. His mira- 
cles manifested divine power in every department of 



JESUS CHRIST. 71 

nature. The sea obeyed him ; and the winds were 
still at his voice. "Water blushed to wine ; and bread 
in the desert grew beneath his touch. He poured 
light upon the sightless balls, and the tide of health 
through the palsied limbs. The lame leaped in glad- 
ness before him ; and the dumb broke forth in ho- 
sannas to the Son of David. He raised the dying 
from the deathbed, — the dead from the bier and the 
tomb. He thus laid bare the arm of omnipotence, — 
revealed the hidings of divine power, — wrought, 
without any intermediate agency, such works as, 
through second causes, through the common pro- 
cesses of nature, are wrought at all times by the 
Almighty. By these marvellous works, Christ repre- 
sents to our hearts, and brings home to our faith, the 
divine omnipotence. His miracles gave us a con- 
sciousness of repose on an almighty arm. When we 
contemplate what he wrought, we feel more than 
ever that the universe is not its own, but our Father's, 
— that its giant forces are balanced and governed by 
him, who numbers the very hairs of our heads. 
These mighty works rebuke our despondency, and 
give us a calm trust in that Providence, which does 
all things well. 

Christ also comes to us as the image of the divine 
omniscience. He brings to us, from the infinite 
treasury of wisdom and knowledge, all that we need 



72 JESUS CHRIST. 

to know. He gives us assurance under the seal of 
God, wherever we might remain in doubt. He 
speaks with authority, — declares to us what he has 
seen with God, — brings us revelations from the 
bosom of the Father. His teachings are not infer- 
ences from trains of argument ; but portions of abso- 
lute, eternal truth, — transcripts from the infinite mind. 
With regard to the moral attributes of God, his jus- 
tice, holiness, and love, perfection, not infinity, is the 
word, winch characterizes them ; and, in these attri- 
butes, a finite being may be perfect even as God is 
perfect ; that is, may, in his entire sphere of knowl- 
edge, power, and duty, manifest, without deviating 
from them, the same attributes, which God manifests 
throughout the universe, — may be, in his limited 
range and capacity, no less good, just, and holy, than 
God is. But we are acquainted with no perfect child 
of God, except our Savior. Of him alone is the tes- 
timony borne : ' He did no sin.' He ' is holy, harm- 
less, undefiled.' He ' was in all points tempted like 
as we are, yet without sin.' He alone, of all that 
have dwelt upon earth, could say with literal and un- 
exaggerated truth, ' Father, I have finished the work 
which thou gavest me to do.' We feel, as we read 
the gospel, that we are communing with spotless and 
divine perfection. We see there a virtue, beyond 
which no dreams of perfection can reach, — a trans- 



JESUS CHRIST. 73 

parent purity, in which the carping infidel can detect 
no shadow of dimness, — a love unlimited and inex- 
haustible. And, when we hear him say, ' He that 
hath seen me, hath seen the Father,' we rejoice to 
know that the amiable and inviting traits, which tem- 
per the majesty of the Savior's character, belong to 
the Father that sent him. When we view the 
Father through, the Son, we ascribe to him with con- 
fidence all the most tender and attractive forms of 
love, with which we are conversant, such as meek- 
ness and forbearance, pity and compassion, tender 
watchfulness and care over the minutest objects and 
concerns. The life of Jesus, considered as the image 
of God, gives a new and heart -reaching emphasis to 
the declarations of holy writ : ' As a father pitieth his 
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him ; 
for he knoweth our frame ; he remembereth that we 
are dust ; ' — 'A father of the fatherless, and a judge 
of the widows, is God in his holy habitation ; ' — ' He 
provideth for the raven his food, — his young cry unto 
God.' 

There is nothing mystical in the aspect of our Sa- 
vior's character, which I have now presented. It 
only supposes that, which takes place partially in 
every good man, to have taken place in Jesus to an 
unlimited and perfect degree. God manifests him- 
self in every wise and holy man. Whenever we do 
7 



74 JESUS CHRIST. 

God's will, lie dwells and works in us. But that 
spirit, which in us is shed abroad so imperfectly, and 
is so often quenched by doubt, folly, and sin, was on 
Jesus shed without measure, pervaded every faculty 
of his soul, prompted his every word and deed, in 
fine, constituted his only principle of life and of 
energy. Indeed, all moral goodness is the same in 
kind, — it differs only in degree. 

This leads me next to speak of Jesus as the perfect 
'pattern for man in all the duties of a creature and a 
fellow- creature, — of a child and a brother. He bears 
the divine image, that we may bear it also, — that 
we, beholding with open countenance the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus, may be changed into the 
same image, — that, in St. Peter's language, we may 
■ be partakers of the divine nature,' and, in St. Paul's, 
may ' be followers of God as dear children.' Through 
the imitation of Jesus, is one and the same moral 
image to be reflected by all true children of God. 
They are to purify themselves as he is pure. When 
he shall appear, they are to be like him ; and thus, 
in every disciple, are the words of his prayer to be 
fulfilled : ' The glory which thou gavest me, I have 
given them, that they may be one, even as we are 
one, I in them, and thou in me.' 

I have thus presented our Savior under the two 
prominent aspects, in which, it seems to me, the 



JESUS CHRIST. 75 

scriptures present him, as God's image and man's 
exemplar. In these aspects, I am accustomed to 
think of him as abiding still and forever, to his disci- 
ples. As on earth, so now in heaven do the ransomed 
hosts behold him as ' the brightness of the Father's 
glory ; ' and there, as here, is it their privilege to 
'follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.' The 
New Testament always speaks of the life of the re- 
deemed in heaven, as in close personal connection 
with Jesus. He appears to the dying Stephen, and 
receives his ascending spirit St. Paul speaks of his 
1 desire to depart, and to be with Christ' St. John 
says of those, ' which came out of great tribulation/ 
that ' the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne 
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living foun- 
tains of waters.' Finite spirits, even through a 
boundless eternity, can never ' by searching find out 
the Almighty unto perfection ; ' and the idea seems 
to me consonant with both reason and scripture, and 
meets with a grateful response from the heart that 
truly loves Jesus, that he will through eternity be our 
guide to the more perfect knowledge of God, and 
our forerunner in every path of duty. 

Meanwhile, our Savior is represented as standing 
in the most intimate relation to his disciples yet on 
earth. His promise is : ' Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name, there am I in the 



76 JESUS CHRIST. 

midst of them ; ' # — ' Lo, I am with you always, even 
unto the end of the world.' t G-od ' gave him/ says 
St. Paul, ' to be the head over all things to the 
church.' t These and similar passages of scripture 
seem to indicate, that he is invisibly present with his 
church, and wields a delegated sovereignty over God's 
spiritual kingdom upon earth, in fine, that he stands 
in the same relation to the household of faith, in 
which the father of a family stands to his children, 
watching for their good, dispensing God's gifts to 
their necessities, their helper in every good work, the 
inspirer of holy thoughts, and of inward peace and joy. 

Jesus is also spoken of as our intercessor with the 
Father. Says the writer to the Hebrews : ' He is 
able to save them to the uttermost that come unto 
God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make inter cession 
for them.' II ' If any man sin,' says St. John, \ we 
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
righteous.' $ This intercession of Christ we regard 
with unfeigned and devout gratitude, not that we 
suppose it needed to render God propitious, but be- 
cause it presents so vivid and touching an image of 
the Savior's love for man. 

Jesus is also spoken of as man's final judge ; and 
the tribunal, before which we must all appear, is de- 

* Matthew xviii. 20. f Matthew xxviii. 20. J Ephesians i. 22. 
1| Hebrews vii. 25. § 1 John ii. 1. 



JESUS CHRIST. 77 

signated as ' the judgment-seat of Christ' * ' Tlie 
Father hath cominitted all judgment unto the Son. 

. . . . The hour is coming, hi the which all 
that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall 
come forth ; they that have done good, unto the resm> 
rection of life ; and they that have done evil, unto the 
resurrection of damnation.'! This idea naturally con- 
nects itself with that of the intimate relation of Jesus 
to his church on earth, and to the assembly of the 
redeemed in heaven. The soul passes from the 
agony of death into his presence ; and that very in- 
terview is in itself a judgment and a sentence. The 
soul, that is of his lineage and kindred, sees its own 
cherished traits of character reflected from his coun' 
tenance, and reads in his eye the invitation, ' Come, 
thou blessed of my Father.' On the other hand, the 
impenitent, the willingly guilty, from a countenance 
with which they have no sympathy, from a glance 
which reflects not theirs, receive the sad mandate, 
' Depart, ye cursed.' Like or unlike him, is the great 
question of the final judgment. This question, the 
ranks of spirits, as they go from earth to the Savior's 
immediate presence, answer ; and, as they answer it, 
join his heavenly flock, or go away into the company 
of outcast and rebel spirits. 

I would next refer to the idea entertained by many, 

* 2 Corinthians v. 10. f John v. 22, 2S, 29. 

7* 



78 JESUS CHRIST. 

that our Savior was God's agent in the creation of the 
visible universe. Of this I find no scriptural proof. 
Indeed, the passages commonly quoted in support of 
this opinion, appear to me to have reference to some- 
thing more precious and more enduring than the ma- 
terial universe, — to God's spiritual creation and 
kingdom. The idea under discussion rests mainly on 
two passages. One is in the epistle to the Hebrews : 
1 By whom also he made the worlds.' * The word 
here rendered worlds, has for its primary meaning 
ages or dispensations. It is the word rendered ages in 
the following passage : ' The mystery which hath 
been hid from ages, and from generations.' t I sup- 
pose that, in the passage under consideration, it means 
ages, namely, the successive ages of the church, or 
the different religious dispensations, patriarchal, Le- 
vitical and prophetical, which, had preceded the ad- 
vent of Christ. This exposition gives a peculiar 
force and beauty to the opening verses of the epistle 
to the Hebrews. ' God, who, at sundry times and 
in divers maimers, spake unto the fathers by the 
prophets, hath in these latter da} r s spoken unto us 
through Ins Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all 
things, on whose account he indeed made or arranged 
the earlier dispensations just referred to, making them 

* Hebrews i. 2. f Colossians i. 28. 



JESUS CHRIST. 79 

all point onward to him, in all of them foreshadowing 
his coming and preparing his way.' 

The other passage, in which it has been held that 
Christ is distinctly set forth as the Creator of the uni- 
verse, is this : ' For by, or through him were all things 
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, vis- 
ible and invisible, whether they be tin-ones, or domin- 
ions, or principalities, or powers, all things were cre- 
ated by him and for him ; and he is before them all, 
and they are all bound together through him.' # This 
passage I understand as assigning to our Savior much 
loftier functions, than the creation of a perishing uni- 
verse. The all things referred to are the thrones, 
2J rinci politics, and powers, the ranks and distinctions in 
the spiritual universe, whether seen or unseen, 
whether apostles, pastors, and teachers, among dying 
men, or those, who occupy high places, nearest the 
throne, first in song, among the hosts of heaven. 
Their dignities, their thrones, and powers, are his cre- 
ation, his gift. He ordains shepherds after his own 
heart on earth. He assigns to each his place, his 
sphere, in heaven. He is before them all, their 
prince, their head ; and through him are the}^ all 
bound together as one, — through him are they all, in 
heaven and on earth, made one family. With this 
exposition the verse next following fitly harmonizes. 

* Colossians i. 1G, 17. 



80 JESUS CHRIST. 

1 And lie is the head of the body, the church.' This 
place, as prince and head of God's spiritual king- 
dom, the scriptures with one voice concede to him ; 
and we gratefully reecho the ascription of those in 
heaven, who cry, ' Worthy is the Lamb that was 
slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and 
strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.' 

We arrive now at the important inquiry, — who, as 
to his person, was this wonderful being, in whom 
God thus enshrined and manifested himself, and who 
is now raised to the head of the spiritual universe ? 
With regard to the person of Jesus, Unitarians are 
divided in sentiment. They are often accused of 
representing him as a mere man ; but falsely. Those, 
who bear the name of Humanitarians, do not believe 
him to have been a man like other men ; for, if he 
had no separate existence before his birth in Beth- 
lehem, still the miraculous circumstances attending 
his birth, his intimate connection with the Deity, his 
vast endowments, his exalted mission, raised him far 
above all others, who have ever borne the human 
form. His apostles cannot at any time have regarded 
him as a mere man. They knew of his miraculous 
birth, of the vision of angels to the shepherds, of his 
preternatural wisdom in childhood, and of the voice 
from heaven at his baptism. They evidently never 
supposed him the supreme God. They always looked 



JESUS CHRIST. 81 

upon him as a fellow creature ; but yet they mani- 
festly regarded him as a superior being, and as one, 
of whom they could not have been surprised to learn, 
that he had existed before he came into this world. 

Believing, as I do, in our Savior's preexistence, I 
now ask your attention to some of the leading scrip- 
tural proofs, upon which this doctrine rests. I will 
first quote these words of our Savior: ' No man hath 
ascended up to heaven, but he that came dawn from 
heaven! # Is it said, that coming doivn from heaven, 
simply implies a divine commission ? Why then did 
not John the Baptist, who certainly had a commis- 
sion no less from God than that of Jesus, speak of 
himself as coming down from heaven ? But he, in 
this same chapter, expressly speaks of Christ as com- 
ing from heaven, in a sense in which he himself did 
not come from heaven, and of himself as being of the 
earth, in a sense in which Christ was not of the earth. 
' He must increase,' says the Baptist, ' but I must de- 
crease. He that cometh from above is above all : he 
that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the 
earth : he that cometh from heaven is above all.' 

Again, Jesus says of himself, * What and if ye shall 
see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ? ' f 
When he uttered these words, he had just before 
called himself f the bread which came down from 

* John iii. 13 : f John vi, 63, 



82 JESUS CHRIST. 

heaven/ by which his Jewish hearers had understood 
him as asserting his preexistence ; for they imme- 
diately said among themselves : ' Is not this Jesus, 
the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we 
know ? How is it then that he saith, I came down 
from heaven ? ' It is in the conversation induced by 
these cavils, that Jesus asks, ' What and if ye shall 
see the Son of man ascend up where he was before ? ' 
I next cite the words of Jesus, ' Before Abraham 
was, I am?* Those, who deny our Savior's pre- 
existence, regard these words as elliptical, and supply 
a second nominative after the verb am, — ' Before 
Abraham was, I am ' he, — I am the Christ, the 
Messiah, that is, I was marked out by a divine decree 
for the office of the Messiah, long before Abraham's 
birth. That, in several instances in the New Testa- 
ment, he must necessarily be supplied after I am, in 
order to complete the sentence, I freely admit. But 
in every one of these cases, (unless this constitute 
an exception,) Jesus, or the Christ, or some synony- 
mous word, or phrase, can be supplied from what 
immediately precedes. There is such an instance in 
this same chapter. ' When ye have lifted up the 
Son of man, then shall ye know that I am,' the he 
being necessarily supplied to complete the sentence, 
and referring to the Son of man, (a title of the Messiah 

* John viii. 5S. 



JESUS CHRIST. 83 

doubtless well known among the Jews,) immediately 
preceding. But in the text under discussion, if we 
supply the pronoun he, there is nothing which precedes, 
to which the pronoun can refer, no name or title of 
Jesus having been employed for more than tiventy of 
the next preceding verses. I feel fully convinced, 
therefore, that there is no competent critical ground 
for translating this sentence, * Before Abraham 
was, I am he? But, even were we to deem this 
translation admissible on critical grounds, it makes 
our Savior's words utterly unmeaning ; and they 
might have been used by any other person, as well 
as by him. Peter, having existed from all eternity in 
the foreknowledge and determination of God, might 
have said, ' Before Abraham was, I am Peter,' with 
just as much truth and significance, as Jesus could 
have said, ' Before Abraham was, I am the Christ.' 
Moreover, these words of Jesus are in answer to the 
question : ' Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast 
thou seen Abraham ? ' The answer ought, according 
to every reasonable principle of interpretation, to be 
understood as having some bearing upon the question. 
I next quote the following, from our Savior's prayer 
with his disciples : ' And now, O Father, glorify thou 
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had 
ivith thee before the world was' And again, ' Thou 
lovedst me before the foundation of the world?* It 

* John xvii. 5, 24. 



84 JESUS CHRIST. 

requires bold and rash criticism to make this glory 
before the world was, a glory in the depths of divine 
counsels ; and are we not borrowing from the scholastic 
absurdities of the middle ages, when we speak of 
God's love in anticipation for a nonexistent being, — 
of his Jove before the foundation of the world fox a being, 
who was not to see the light of life, till the world was 
four thousand years old ? I know not how to evade 
the conclusion, that these passages denote our Savior's 
preexistence. 

I will now adduce one or two passages from St 
Paul. In his discourse on the resurrection, speaking 
of Christ, he says, ' The second man is the Lord from 
heaven?* Here the whole argument is based on the 
heavenly origin and the superhuman character of 
Jesus. 

St. Paul again says : ' Ye know the grace of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for 
your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty 
might be rich.' The most obvious, and, to my mind, 
the only satisfying sense of these words is, that Jesus, 
for man's salvation, passed from a richer into a poorer, 
from a more lofty into a more humble condition. 

These are some of the leading texts, which support 
the doctrine of our Savior's preexistence. There is 
something also in the general turn of the New Testa- 

* 1 Corinthians xv. 47. 



JESUS CHRIST. 85 

ment phraseology, with reference to him, for which I 
cannot account on any other ground. I refer to the 
numerous passages, in which his advent is spoken of. 
Most of them, literally interpreted, would imply either 
his own antecedent personal agency, in connection 
with his advent, or, at least, Ms changing one state of 
being for another, rather than his beginning to exist 
Such a passage is the following : ' He made himself 
of no reputation, (literally, emptied himself, as if of 
what he had previously possessed or enjoyed,) and 
took upon him the likeness of men ; and being found 
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.'* To this 
class of texts, belongs also the following, from the 
epistle to the Galatians : ' When the fulness of the 
time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a 
woman.'! 

Some of the titles most usually given to our Savior, 
seem to designate a personal rank superior to that of 
man, and according well with the idea- of his pre- 
existence. The title, Son of God, implies, indeed, a 
created and subordinate being; and all men are, and 
are called, sons of God. But yet, it seems to be 
applied to our Savior in a peculiar and exclusive 
sense, often with the distinguishing epithets only and 
only-begotten. 

I might quote many other passages and considera- 

* Pliilippians ii. 7, 8. f Galatians iv. 4. 



86 JESUS CHRIST. 

tions in confirmation of onr Savior's preexistence. 
I find many indubitable traces of it, (particularly in 
the gospel of John,) which gain distinctness the 
more closely I view them, and the more searchingly I 
apply to them the canons of sound criticism. 

Were there but two or three passages, which 
seemed to teach this doctrine, and were it opposed 
to the general tenor of the New Testament, I should 
feel myself bound to interpret these few passages in 
accordance with the analogy of other scriptures. 
But the passages are too various and too numerous to 
be regarded as merely figurative ; and the doctrine, 
which they imply, in no wise militates against the 
language or the spirit of the New Testament in 
general. Indeed, there are considerations, which 
seem to render our Savior's preexistence intrinsically 
probable. The mission, which he filled, was the 
loftiest that a created being could discharge ; and it 
would seem reasonable, and natural, that, for so high 
a function, God should have ordained one of the 
elder, and more exalted members of his spiritual 
family, rather than one from the human race, — the 
youngest and humblest branch of that family. 

Let me now notice briefly the principal objections 
urged against this doctrine. 

In the first place, it is urged that Christ is not unfre- 
quently styled a man, in the New Testament. We 



JESUS CHRIST. 87 

answer, that he was - found in fashion as a man/ 
passed through the vicissitudes of man's life, bore 
many of man's trials and infirmities, in fine, was, 
(whatever theory we adopt,) a man in very many 
of his circumstances and relations. Moreover, the 
analogy of scripture gives us abundant reason to 
believe, that, with his preexistence distinctly in view, 
the sacred writers would have frequently called him 
a man, when they contemplated him in his human 
aspects, relations, and fortunes. There are numerous 
instances, both in the Old and New Testament, in 
which superhuman beings are called men. Thus, in 
Genesis, we read of Abraham : ' The Lord appeared 
unto him in the plains of Mamre : and he sat in the 
tent-door in the heat of the day ; and he lifted up his 
eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him.'* 
the next chapter, we are told of two of these men : 
' There came two angels to Sodom,' and shortly after > 
of the same two, ' The men put forth their hand,' 
When the birth of Samson is announced, we first 
read that ' the angel of the Lord appeared unto the 
woman,' — then, that ' the woman came and told her 
husband, saying, A man of God came unto me,' — and 
lastly, that 'the angel of the Lord, (that is, the man 
of God just spoken of,) ascended in the flame of the 
altar.'f Luke, in describing our Lord's resurrection, 

* Genesis xviii. 1, 2. | Judges xiii. 3, 6, 20. 



88 JESUS CHRIST. 

says that ' two men stood by the women in shining 
garments,'* which men John calls 'two angels in 
white.' These examples will suffice to show, that, 
in reasoning upon the nature of Christ, no stress can 
be laid on the mere use of the word mem. 

It is also objected to the doctrine of our Savior's 
preexistence, that it deprives his example of its 
appropriateness and value. By no means, I reply. 
All God's spiritual children are of the same family. 
Man is distinguished from other branches of the same 
family less by nature, than by circumstances merely 
local and temporary. The duties incumbent on all 
created spirits, are the same, namely, love and obedi- 
ence to the great father spirit, love and charity to all 
fellow-spirits. The particular mode, in which these 
duties are to be discharged, depends upon the circum- 
stances, in which each individual spirit is placed ; 
and, were the greatest of created spirits to be clothed 
with a human body, and to pass through an earthly 
life, his duties would be strictly human duties, — his 
conduct in any given situation, would be precisely 
what that of a common man, in the same situation, 
ought to be. Whatever, then, we may believe with 
regard to the nature of Christ, if he was ' found in 
fashion as a man,' his conduct, in all human relations, 
must have been precisely what man's ought to be, 

* Luke xxiv. 4. 



JESUS CHRIST, 89 

and must, therefore, be a fit example for our literal 
imitation. Nor let it be said, that, as superhuman, he 
was necessarily sinless ; that he could not have felt the 
power of temptation; and that his victory over sin, 
therefore, affords us no encouragement. If he was a 
finite spirit, and a free agent, he must have been a 
subject of temptation, and capable of sin ; and, though 
the miserable baits of earthly pleasure and ambition 
might have offered but little alluremenHx) a heaven- 
born spirit, yet, in his superhuman endowments, and in 
his vastly expanded relations, and sphere of action, he 
might have found as strong temptations, as we do in 
the mere objects of sense, and might have won as 
arduous moral victories, as we should win, were we 

to lead an entirely stainless life from the cradle to the 

grave. 

There is one thought, which, to my own mind, 

attaches a peculiar worth to our Savior's example, on 

the ground of his preexistence. I have said that all 

spirits are of one family. Outward circumstances 

alone, form the dividing line between good men and 

angels. ' In the resurrection, they are as the angels 

of God in heaven/ We are made for endless growth. 

In this life, ' it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; ' 

but, unknown ages hence, we may look down upon 

the present spiritual attainments of an archangel, as 

we should look up to them now. We here are train- 
s' 



90 



JESUS CHRIST 



iiig ourselves in the school of Christ for familiar 
communion with the thrones, principalities, and 
powers of heaven. Does it not then commend itself 
to us as worthy of the infinite wisdom of our Father, 
that he should fit us for this blessed society, through 
the agency of one of these elder and purer spirits, 
whose exalted perfections may inspire us with an 
enthusiastic zeal as we seek to be his followers, 
while, looking to him as a brother, as one bound by 
the same ties, called to the same duties with our- 
selves, we may imitate him without despondency or 
discouragement ? 

Such are the views of our Savior's person and 
character, which seem to me most consonant with the 
word of God. They commend themselves to my 
mind as equally removed from objectionable extremes. 
On the one hand, they bring the Savior within the 
range of our sympathy, and save us from the inextri- 
cable confusion of ideas inseparable from the doctrine 
of the Trinity ; and, on the other hand, they preserve 
unimpaired the matchless wisdom, the spotless purity, 
the divine authority of Jesus, and present him as a 
being, on whom we can look with mingled reverence 
and love, — whom we can welcome to our hearts as a 
brother, while we must bow before him as from a 
higher sphere, — who, at once, guides us in the duties 
of our mortal pilgrimage, and makes us, as partakers 
of his glory, peers of angels, and citizens of heaven. 



JESUS CHRIST. 91 

While my reason and my heart are satisfied with 
these views, they constitute the only ground, on winch 
I can make the voice of scripture harmonize. The 
Trinitarian theory does great violence to the laws of 
interpretation, and brings the various testimonies of 
the divine word into harsh and irreconcilable conflict 
with each other. The Humanitarian expositions of 
scripture, I dare not trust. They are lax. They seem 
to me to wrest the scriptures. Though they have the 
advantage of being urged in behalf of a doctrine, not 
absurd, but hi itself altogether tenable, in a critical 
point of view they seem to me hardly less objection- 
able, than the Trinitarian expositions do. The views, 
which I have now presented, do no violence, as I 
think, to the principles of sound criticism. I can go 
with them through the whole of the New Testament, 
and mid not a text, which gives me any serious diffi- 
culty. They suffer me to interpret the scriptures in 
their literal and obvious sense, which neither of the 
other theories will. On this account, as one, who 
feels inadequate to settle these points without the 
authority of express revelation, and who receives the 
scriptures as given by inspiration of God, I prize and 
cherish these views ; and should be glad to know, 
that my statements and arguments have produced in 
your minds the same conviction, that exists in my 
own. 



92 JESUS CHRIST. 

I close with a single reflection. If this exalted 
being entered our world, assumed its burdens and its 
sorrows, and passed through its gates of death, of 
what momentous interest and importance must be the 
service, which he came to render, — of what unspeak- 
able worth, the salvation winch he brings and offers ! 
If, under a darker and less perfect dispensation, 
1 every transgression and disobedience received a just 
recompense of reward, how shall we escape, if we 
neglect so great salvation ? ' 



LECTURE IV. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



LUKE XI. 13. 

IF YE THEN, BEING EVIL, KNOW HOW TO GIVE GOOD 

GIFTS UNTO YOUR CHILDREN, HOW MUCH MORE 

SHALL YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER GIVE THE 

HOLY SPIRIT TO THEM THAT ASK HIM? 

The holy spirit is my subject this evening. I 
will commence my lecture by a word of explanation, 
which will be necessary for but few, yet which some 
may need. We sometimes read in the New Testa- 
ment of the holy spirit, and full as often of the holy 
ghost. The original word is the same in one case, as 
in the other ; but, at the time when the Bible was 
translated, ghost and spirit meant the same thing, 
and were used indifferently to express the same idea. 
Since that time, the word ghost has become so 
restricted in signification, as to denote only a spectral 
apparition ; while spirit means the same now that it 
did then. 

The controversy with regard to the holy spirit is, 
not as to its reality, or its divinity, but as to its person- 



94 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

ality. No christian denies that there is a holy spirit, 
or maintains the holy spirit to be an inferior and 
subordinate person. But the Trinitarian maintains, 
that the holy spirit is a distinct and eqnal person of 
the Godhead. We, on the other hand, believe that 
the holy spirit is but a name, and a most appropriate 
name, for divine influences and operations, and, 
especially, for the influence of God upon the soul of 
man. In the present lecture, I shall first give you my 
reasons for not embracing the Trinitarian view of the 
holy spirit, and then shall expound and illustrate my 
own view of the nature and influences of the holy 
spirit. 

I could name with great sincerity, as my first and 
sufficient reason for not embracing the Trinitarian 
doctrine on this subject, that I see not the shadow of 
an argument in support of it. I confess, that, while I 
cherish no disrespect for minds so constituted as to 
perceive the force of the arguments employed in 
defence of this doctrine, I myself am unable to 
appreciate them, and should hardly know how to 
refute them better than by a simple statement of 
them. 

But, in pursuance of the plan marked out for these 
lectures, I shall go over the whole ground of the 
argument on both sides, as thoroughly as I can in a 
single discourse. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 95 

At the outset, in the way of regarding the holy 
spirit as a separate and independent person of the 
Godhead, there stand several scores of passages in 
the New Testament, in which the holy spirit is spoken 
of as subject to, or conferred by God and Christ. 
Such passages are the following : ' I will put my 
spirit upon him.'* ' How much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the holy spirit ? 't ' God giveth 
not the spirit by measure unto him.'l ' God, who 
hath also given unto us his holy spirit'^ ' The holy 
ghost sent down from heaven.' II ' The Comforter, 
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the 
spirit of truth/IT Who can send or give the supreme 
and eternal God? The veiy idea is unspeakably 
absurd. 

I am aware of the usual mode of accounting for 
phraseology of the kind just quoted. It is main- 
tained that the three equal persons of the Trinity 
entered into a covenant, by which the Son agreed to 
be subject to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to move 
at the bidding of the Father and the Son. But this 
covenant is not mentioned in the Bible. Moreover, 
it is a covenant of falsehood, — a covenant, by which 
the Son and the Holy Spirit agree to act a lie, — to 
represent a state of things, which has no actual 

* Matthew xii. 18. | Luke xi. 13. % John iii. 34 

§ 1 Thessalonians iv. 8. || 1 Peter i. 12. % John xv. 26. 



96 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

existence, — to play an assumed part. But, were we 
to admit this incongruous idea, (which I know not 
how to entertain for a moment,) of a covenant be- 
tween the three persons of the Godhead, I still should 
maintain, that, whatever reason existed for the as- 
sumed inferiority of the second and third persons, the 
same reason must needs exist for our receiving and 
regarding them in the characters, which they have 
assumed. It is far more reverent and pious, to receive 
them as they are offered to us in the gospel, than to 
insist on rending off the disguise which they have 
chosen to wear, rescinding the covenant which they 
have sealed, and regarding them in a light, in which 
they have agreed not to be regarded. 

Again, were the holy spirit a person, especially, a 
person of the Godhead, we should at least expect to 
find him designated by the use of a masculine noun, 
and masculine pronouns. We should hardly expect 
to find a divine person generally designated by a 
noun in the neuter gender, with articles, pronouns, 
adjectives, and participles in the neuter, (for in the 
Greek, all these parts of speech are distinguished by 
gender.) Yet the Greek word rendered spirit or ghost 
is neuter, and is invariably connected with neuter 
articles, pronouns, adjectives, and participles. There 
is not an instance, in which, in the Greek of the New 
Testament, a pronoun corresponding to our word he, 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 97 

his, or him, is used in connection with the holy spirit ; 
but always a pronoun corresponding to it or its. Now, 
in the Greek language, the only cases, in which living 
beings are denoted by neuter nouns and pronouns 
are those of certain diminutives, the smallness of 
which is expressed by the use of this gender, — an 
idiom like that, by which we, though in bad taste, call 
a very little child it, instead of he or she. Is there 
then the slightest probability that the sacred writers 
should have employed the neuter gender to denote a 
person of the most exalted dignity, — a person of the 
Godhead ? 

But the holy spirit is, four tunes in the gospel 
of John, called the comforter or advocate, and in 
connection with this term, are employed words in the 
masculine gender ; and, it is asked, must not that, 
which is called by a word so manifestly the name of 
a person, be a real person, and not a mere influence ? 
I reply, that, either the word spirit, and the neuter 
words used with it, are employed figuratively, or the 
word comforter is so employed. Now "which is the most 
probable, — that this divine person should be spoken of 
literally in the New Testament but four times, and 
figuratively several hundreds of times, and that too in 
a figure, which diminishes, instead of amplifying his 
dignity ; or, that a divine influence, which is spoken 
of literally several hundreds of times, should four 



98 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

times be personified ? We must, in answering this 
question, bear it in mind, that the personifying of 
things without life, whether outward objects, or con- 
ceptions of the intellect, is an exceedingly common 
figure of speech, and one which always gives dignity 
to the things personified ; while the opposite figure, 
namely, the use with regard to a person of language 
applicable to an inanimate object, is exceedingly rare, 
and is seldom employed, except in derision or irony, 
or to indicate the exceeding littleness of the person 
spoken of. 

To show the true value of the argument for the 
personality of the holy spirit, based on the use of the 
word comforter, let us suppose a parallel case. Sup- 
pose that a volume of American sermons were put 
into the hands of a heathen, who understood our lan- 
guage, yet did not know the import of the word Bible. 
He would, it is to be hoped, often meet with that 
word, perhaps several times in each sermon. He 
would find it always treated as a neuter noun, and 
would see its place supplied by it and which, not by 
he and who. For the most part, there would be 
nothing said about the Bible, which was not literally 
applicable to a book. But in an exhortation towards 
the close of one of the sermons, something would 
perhaps be said about the duty of taking the Bible 
for a guide ; and we will suppose the word guide used 



THE HOLY SPIRIT, 99 

with regard to the Bible four times in this one pas- 
sage. Now, were the heathen reader to insist that 
the Bible was a person, because in this volume of 
sermons it was four times called a guide, he would 
reason precisely like those, who infer the personality 
of the holy spirit from the use of the word comforter 
concerning it, four times in a single discourse of our 
Savior. 

Again, any possible inference, which might be 
drawn in behalf of this doctrine of the personality of 
the holy spirit, from the use of the word comforter, is 
entirely precluded by the fact, that in each of the four 
instances # in which this word is used, it is denned 
by the neuter noun spirit, with a variety of words in 
the neuter gender connected with it. The first in- 
stance reads thus : ' I will pray the Father, and he 
shall give you another comforter, that he may abide 
with you forever, — even the spirit of truth, which the 
world cannot receive, because it seeth it not, neither 
knoweth it; but ye know it; for it dwelleth with 
you, and shall be in you/ Every one of these pro- 
nouns in the original is in the neuter gender. The 
next instance reads thus : ■ The comforter, that is, 
the holy spirit, which the Father will send in my 
name,' the relative in the Greek being neuter. The 
next is this : ' When the comforter is come, whom I 
will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of 
^John xiy. 16, 26 ; xy. 2G ; xvi. 7. 



100 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

truth, which proceedeth from the Father.' In the 
fourth instance also, the comforter is defined to be the 
spirit of truth. 

I would next remind you of other forms of speech 
in the New Testament, entirely incompatible with 
the personality of the holy spirit. The holy spirit is 
repeatedly said to be poured out, shed, quenched, and 
the like, and christians are said to be anointed with 
the holy spirit, — expressions never used with regard 
to persons, but entirely applicable when used with 
regard to influences. 

Another most decisive argument against the dis- 
tinct and personal divinity of the holy spirit, is to be 
found in the offices ascribed in the scriptures to the 
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, respectively. The 
Trinitarian theory is, that there is a partition of 
divine attributes and offices between the three per- 
sons, whose respective functions are entirely distinct 
and separate from each other. The Father is the 
Creator, the Son the Redeemer, the Holy Spirit the 
Sanctiner. Now it might with much reason be ob- 
jected to this partition, that the two last named offices 
are one ; that sanctification is man's only redemption ; 
that sin is precisely "what Jesus came to save men 
from ; and that he can do this only by making them 
holy. But we will not insist on this. We will sup- 
pose these three offices of creator, redeemer, and 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 101 

sanctifier, in themselves entirely distinct from each 
other. Now if it appears that the three persons of 
the Godhead, (so called,) discharge each other's al- 
leged functions, the distinction of persons can be no 
longer maintained. This, I think, will appear ; and, 
in particular, we shall see that sanctincation, deemed 
the special function of the Holy Spirit, is ascribed 
both to the Father and to the Son, and, on the other 
hand, that creation and redemption, regarded as the 
prerogatives of the Father and the Son, are ascribed 
to the Holy Spirit. 

Sanctincation is ascribed to the Father. In a 
prayer addressed expressly to the Father, Jesus says : 
1 Sanctify them through thy truth.' * St. Paul prays : 
1 The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.' t St' 
Jude addresses his epistle ' to them that are sancti- 
fied by God the Father.' % 

Sanctincation is also attributed to Jesus. Says St. 
Paul : ' Of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is 
made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctiT 
fication.' $ And, again : ' Christ also loved the 
church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanc- 
tify and cleanse it.' II Says the writer to the He- 
brews : ' We are sanctified through the offering of the 

* John xvii. 17. f 1 Thessalonians y. 23, \ Jude 1. 

§ 1 Corinthians i. 30. || Ephesians y. 25, 26. 

9# 



102 THE HOLT SPIRIT. 

body of Christ once for all.' # And, again : ' Jesus 
also, that he might sanctify the people with his own 
blood, suffered without the gate.' t 

To the holy spirit also, creation, the Father's al- 
leged prerogative, is ascribed, as in these passages : 
' By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens.' $. ' The 
spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the 
Almighty hath given me life.' $ 

Every stage also in Christ's work of redemption is 
ascribed to the holy spirit. He ascribes his own 
miracles to ' the spirit of God ; ' II and he is said to 
have ' offered himself through the eternal spirit.' IF 

The scriptures then leave no ground for the dis- 
tinction of attributes and offices between the three 
persons of the Trinity, claimed by our Trinitarian 
friends ; and, in ascribing to the holy sphit the same, 
and only the same attributes and offices ascribed to 
the Father and the Son, they make the distinct per- 
sonality of the holy spirit a theory utterly without 
foundation. 

The texts, usually quoted in support of the per- 
sonality of the holy spirit, are those, in which the 
holy spirit is spoken of as being sent, blasphemed, 
tempted, grieved or resisted, all which are not unusual 
instances of personification, and represent a style of 

* Hebrews x. 10, 11. f Hebrews xiii. 12. 

X Job xxvi. 13. § Job xxxiii. 4. 

|| Matthew xii. 28. % Hebrews ix. 14. 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 103 

language constantly employed with regard to objects 
without life. Thus we say, that a shower is sent, that 
divine mercy is blasphemed, that one's integrity is 
tempted, that good counsels are resisted. 

The only text, that demands distinct notice, is the 
following: ' Likewise the spirit also helpeth our in- 
firmities ; for we know not what we should pray for 
as we ought ; but the spirit itself maketh interces- 
sion for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 
And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth the mind 
of the spirit, because it maketh intercession for the 
saints according to the will of God.' # It is surpri- 
sing that this text should ever have been quoted as 
favoring the idea of the supreme, independent divinity 
of a spirit, which intercedes, that is, offers prayer, 
of course to some superior being ; nor does the idea 
of groaning accord with the serene and perfect 
happiness of an almighty being. I do not think, that 
the spirit of God is referred to in this passage. It is 
the spirit or soul of man, of the christian, that is here 
spoken of. The apostle has alluded, in the prece- 
ding verses, to the infirmities of an earthly condition, 
which are to be borne with, patience and hope. He 
adds : ' The spirit, the soul, also, fixed on God and 
on eternal tilings, helps our infirmities, — sustains our 
frail bodies. We indeed often know not what is 

*John viii. 26,27. 



104 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

best for us, — what we ought to pray for; but the 
soul still prays, — pours itself out to God in aspira- 
tions and longings, deep and fervent, though often 
vague and indefinite. And he, that searches the 
hearts of men, knows the mind of the spirit, — knows 
the meaning of its groans and supplications, — knows 
the wants, which it does not know itself; for the 
souls of the righteous intercede for them according 
to the divine will, — long and yearn, in these groan- 
ings that cannot be uttered, for such spiritual favors, 
as God is always ready to bestow.' The idea of 
the passage is, that the devout soul, in all its in- 
firmity and its ignorance, will still be sustained, for 
it will still press to the mercy seat ; and that, if it 
knows not even what to ask for, and cannot shape 
its own supplications, God, knowing the rectitude 
and earnestness of its desires, will satisfy all its real 
wants. 

The holy spirit is not then a distinct person. 
What is it? What does the phrase mean? How 
are we to account for its use ? We shall not, it 
seems to me, need to look far for our answer. Our 
common use of the word spirit will sufficiently ex- 
plain its use in the sacred writings. What do we 
mean by the spirit of a man ? A man performs two 
kinds of works, — exerts two kinds of agency. Some 
things he does expressly, — visibly, or audibly, — by 






THE HOLY SPIRIT. 105 

word, or hand, or writing. Other, and often much 
greater things, he brings to pass by his influence, — 
by silent outgoings from his character, — by the 
power of his example, — by an agency, which far 
transcends his sphere of immediate action, and often 
outlasts the period of his mortal life. This influence, 
this agency, we usually denominate the spirit of the 
man; and its effects, its fruits, whether in the 
character of individuals or in the state of society, 
we also designate as his spirit. For instance, we call 
the influence, which the efforts and example of How- 
ard the philanthropist had, and still have, the spirit 
of Howard ; and, whenever we see works like his 
wrought, or persons engaged in works like his, we 
say that the spirit of Howard is in those works, or in 
those men. We then habitually use the word spirit 
to designate, first, a man's influence, and, secondly, the 
effects of that influence. 

Now I conceive that we have no need of going 
beyond these common, well known uses of the word 
spirit, to explain its use in the scriptures with refer- 
ence to the Almighty. We find the phrases, spirit of 
God, spirit of truth, holy spirit, and the like, con- 
stantly used in these senses ; and there is not a pas- 
sage, as seems to me, in which it is necessary to 
look farther for a signification both obvious and 
satisfying. 



106 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

The spirit of God, the Iwily spirit, and like phrases, 
most frequently denote simply the divine influence, 
sometimes hi creation, and in outward events, but, in 
the great majority of instances, on the soul of man. 
They denote indeed a great diversity of divine in- 
fluences, just as, by the spirit of a man, we denote 
every variety of influence, which, a human being can 
exercise. We trace the spirit of a man in the build- 
ing of a city, in the planning of a voyage, in the 
diffusion of literary taste, in the establishment of 
any public institution, in the tone of moral feeling 
cherished by his influence, in ideas or sentiments, to 
which he gave the first development, in fine, in any 
way, in which, without his direct bodily action, his 
character has impressed itself on objects, events, or 
the minds and hearts of others. An equally wide 
ground does the phrase spirit of God, with its cognate 
phrases, cover. It is used with reference to the 
plenary inspiration and the power from on high, 
which rested upon Jesus. To him, we are told, God 
i gives not his spirit by measure ; ' but on him bestows 
every form of divine influence and endowment, of 
which a created being is capable. Then it is used 
concerning the peculiar communications of light and 
power vouchsafed to the apostles and their converts. 
Those, who were thus endowed, were always said 
to have received the holy spirit. It is used of 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 107 

particular divine intimations and impressions, as 
when the spirit bade Philip join the Ethiopian, and 
sent Peter to the house of Cornelius. Then too, it 
is often used, as in our text, to denote those aids in 
the religious life, which ' whosoever asks, receives, 
and he that seeks, finds.' And it is used, in all these 
cases, with regard both to the influence and its 
effects, that is, it is employed to designate the 
spiritual gifts of God, both as they come from him, 
and as they rest upon the minds and hearts of men. 

Now it is self-evident that there is the same room 
for the use of this phraseology with reference to God, 
that there is with reference to man. There is the 
same distinction between the modes and forms of 
divine action, that there is with reference to the 
deeds and agency of man. There are some things, 
which God confers, utters, or brings to pass, visibly 
or audibly. There are other tilings, which he gives 
or brings to pass silently, without any interposing 
cause that can be seen or traced ; and all the various 
influences of this kind, with their results or effects 
are what are termed in the scriptures the holy spirit' 

But, while we find no ground in reason or scripture 
for believing in the personality of the holy spirit, we 
regard the influence of God upon the soul of man as 
an indisputable, essential, fundamental doctrine of 
religion. What distinguishes us from our Trinitarian 



108 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

brethren on this point, is, that we regard this influence 
as flowing, not from a fragment of the divine nature, 
but from the whole undivided Deity. And least of 
all, can we sympathize with believers in the Trinity, 
in separating God the Father from the divine in- 
fluence upon the soul. We feel that it is peculiarly 
in his fatherly relation and attributes, that God is 
present with the soul of man. We find the full 
promise of the holy spirit in these words of Jesus : 
' If a man love me, he will keep my words ; and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, 
and make our abode with him.' It is the spirit of 
the Father, and the Son, and this alone, that we 
desire and seek, not a spirit in any respect or degree 
distinct from either the Father or the Son. 

Let me employ the few moments, for which I yet 
can claim your attention, in developing what I con- 
ceive to be the scriptural doctrine of spiritual in- 
fluences. 

In the first place, the spirit of God is in his works. 
We accord in full with the declaration of the Wis- 
dom of Solomon, ' Thine incorruptible spirit is in all 
things.' Well has it it been said : c This fair universe, 
were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very 
deed the star-domed city of God. Through ev- 
ery star, through every grass-blade, the glory of a 
present God still beams. Nature is the time-vesture 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 109 

of God.' With equal truth and beauty, does Goethe 
put into the mouth of the earth-spirit the words : 

"T is thus at the roaring loom of time 1 ply, 

And weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by.' 

Our first parents heard the voice of the Lord God in 
the garden ; and they, no doubt, miraculously, but not 
one whit more distinctly, than we may hear it this 
very night. There is no poetical fancy, but literal 
truth in the beautiful words of the hymn just sung : 

1 Hark ! on the evening breeze, 
As once of old, the Lord God's voice 
Is heard among the trees.' 

Such is the constant testimony of scripture. God 
is spoken of as actively present in all the forms and 
agencies of the outward universe. Does a tempest 
rise ? ' He maketh the winds his angels.' Do the 
thunders roll ? ' The voice of the Lord is upon the 
waters; the God of glory thundereth.' Do showers 
bless the harvest field ? ' He watereth the hills from 
his chambers.' Does verdure clothe the plain? • He 
causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for 
the service of man.' And in all these forms, in 
myriads of ways, is he speaking to the hearts of his 
human family, claiming their worship, casting deep 
10 



110 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

reproach upon their coldness and indifference, and 
awakening in every thoughtful soul the resolution of 
the psalmist : ' I will sing unto the Lord as long as 
I live : I will sing praise unto my God while I have 
my being. My meditation of him shall be sweet : I 
will be glad in the Lord.' There is, I believe, a per- 
petual communion on God's part with man, in the 
order, harmony, beauty, and majesty of creation. I 
believe, that I no more truly address loving words 
day by day to the children dearer to me than my own 
soul, than God has this day directly spoken to each 
and all of us, his children, in the sunshine and the 
flowers, in the mellow twilight and the gentle breeze. 
I sincerely believe, that the express design of tins 
fair and wonderful creation is to bring the Creator 
near, and to make his presence felt by the living 
souls of men, — to supply a medium of communi- 
cation between the Lilinite and the finite, — to 
render visible and audible those thoughts of love, 
fathomless as the ocean, numberless as its sands. 

In the same light do I regard the whole course of 
Providence. The events of life, ordered by the 
close and constant care of the Almighty, have each a 
voice from him for the spirit's ear, a lesson of truth, 
a message of duty, a word of warning or rebuke, 
comfort or encouragement. How near, how in- 
cessant the watchful presence indicated by our 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. Ill 

Savior's words : • The hairs of your head are all 
numbered.' In the mercies so thickly strewn along 
our daily path, are fulfilled, in every one of our 
thoughtless moments, the words of holy writ, 'God 
hath spoken once, yea, twice, but man perceiveth it 
not.' In every sorrow comes the voice, ' Hear ye 
the rod, and who hath appointed it.' 

But, yet more, apart from outward forms and 
events, I believe in the intimate presence and com- 
munion of God with the soul of man. His hand- 
writing is on our innermost shrines of thought ; his 
voice thrills through the deepest recesses of our 
being. As the builder of a house may construct for 
himself a secret passage, opening by springs winch 
no one else can find, so has the almighty architect 
of the soul of man reserved his own hidden avenues 
of access, by which he visits the soul in its days of 
gladness and its night seasons of sorrow, in its health 
and its sickness, giving it meat to eat, of which the 
world knows not, letting in the dayspring from on 
high upon its darkened chambers, rilling with the oil 
of joy its empty and shrunken vessels. None can 
shut out the thoughts that God sends ; but, unsought, 
unsuggested by the ordinary laws of association, nay, 
often unwelcome, they remain, return, haunt the 
soul, knock at the heart's door, and often forsake it 
not, till they are cherished and obeyed. How true 



112 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

to human experience are the psalmist's words: 
' "Whither shall I go from thy spirit ?' Not we our- 
selves can hold so close communion with our own 
souls, as God can; for how often does his spirit 
reverse our own inward thoughts, and say the 
opposite of what we were saying within ourselves ! 
We are whispering peace to our souls ; but the spirit 
cries, in a voice which self-delusion cannot drown, 
' No peace without repentance and the fruits of love.' 
We natter ourselves that we are rich and full ; but 
the spirit cries, ' Nay, — ye are poor and naked, 
hungry and thirsty, — come, drink of my cup, and eat 
of my bread, and put on my beautiful garments.' 
Or, on the other hand, though in the way of duty, 
we doubt and fear ; and, in the hour of sad self- 
communion, the spirit enters, and says, ' Peace be 
with you/ and the cloud rises from our souls and 
melts away, our hearts grow warm, and burn within 
us, and we perceive that it is the Lord. 

Whence too, when we have trodden the path of 
transgressors, those unsought warnings, presentiments 
of evil, forebodings of penalties that we have defied? 
Whence that uneasy, restless feeling, that •will ever 
intrude itself, when we linger too long on the road- 
side of our heavenward pilgrimage, when we forsake 
duty for pleasure, when we serve mammon instead 
of God ? Whence those preparation seasons for the 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 113 

trial of faitli or of virtue, which every christian has 
experienced, — seasons, when, without any outward 
cause, impressions have been borne in upon our 
minds, spiritual exercises have been induced, and 
views and purposes cherished, precisely adapted to 
exigences just at hand, yet unforeseen, as if our 
Father, when he saw the storm gathering, had hast- 
ened to wrap us beforehand in the mantle of his 
love, and to set our feet in a straight and safe path ? 
"Whence that serene satisfaction, that joy in the Lord, 
that inward repose and harmony, which now from 
trials well sustained and duties nobly done, and which 
give us the surest foretaste of heaven that we can 
have below? Has there ever been a day, whether 
of duty or of sin, of joy or of sorrow, of levity or of 
seriousness, when, if we had strictly reviewed our 
heart's history for the day, we should not have been 
constrained to confess that God had been there, and 
that his spirit had borne witness, either with, or 
against our spirits ? No. The divine spirit has always 
sought to draw us. God has been unceasingly near. 
' Behold, I stand at the door and knock,' is his voice 
to each of us. There lives not the man, who has 
ever succeeded in shutting God from his heart. 
Though we take the wings of the morning, he is 
before us. Though the darkness cover us, it hides 
us not from him. 
10* 



114 THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

It is of these influences of the divine spirit upon 
the soul of man, that it is written, ' Quench not the 
spirit,' — ' Grieve not the holy spirit of God.' For 
these influences, the scriptures teach us, are not irre- 
sistible ; but, like the counsels or the influence of a 
faithful human parent or friend, may be disobeyed 
and disregarded. 

To these same spiritual influences, welcomed and 
obeyed, the scriptures ascribe all that is good and 
holy in man, — all the graces and virtues of the 
regenerate heart. It is by the help of God, that we 
discharge our duty, that we grow in grace, that we 
become followers of Jesus, — all which is sufficiently 
indicated in such scriptures as these : ' By the grace 
of God I am what I am,' — 'It is God that worketh 
in you to will and to do of his good pleasure,' — ' As 
many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the 
sons of God,' — ' The spirit of God dwelleth in you.' 
In accordance with this idea of the helping spirit of 
God, as essential to the christian life, those, who yield 
themselves to the divine influence, are styled ' born 
of the spirit,' — ' baptized with the holy spirit ; ' and 
are said to ' walk after the spirit,' to ' live in the 
spirit,' and to ' have the spirit of God resting upon 
them.' 

Such is the christian doctrine of the holy spirit, — 
the influence of God in nature, in providence, and, 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. Il6 

more than all, his direct, immediate influence upon 
the heart of man, — not a constraining, irresistible 
influence, but an influence, which may, on the one 
hand, be grieved and quenched, or, on the other, 
welcomed, and obeyed; and which, if yielded to, 
becomes the source of eveiy thing worthy and holy 
in the character, — the fountain of renewed and 
sanctified affections, and of a Christ-like walk and 
conversation. 

For this spirit, for these influences, prayer prepares 
the soul, so as to render them availing and enduring. 
By prayer man opens the door of his heart to the spirit, 
that always seeks an entrance and a home there ; nor 
can any earthly parent so promptly meet the wants 
of an only child, as God, by his ever present spirit, 
fulfils the desires of the praying soul. 

I am happy to believe, that, with regard to these 
fundamental, practical views of spiritual influences, 
there is no essential difference among christians. On 
this subject, the religious phraseology of christians of 
different modes of faith, for the most part, coincides ; 
and all true religious experience must of necessity 
be coincident. This experience of the welcomed 
influences and the blessed fruits of the spirit, may 
God grant us all, through Jesus Christ our Savior. 



LECTURE Y. 



HUMAN NATURE. 



ECCLESIASTES VII. 29. 

LO ! THIS ONLY HAVE I FOUND, THAT GOD HATH MADE 

MAN UPRIGHT | BUT THEY HAVE SOUGHT 

OUT MANY INVENTIONS. 

Human nature, as it now is, will be our subject of 
inquiry this evening. And, as it is my chief purpose, 
in these lectures, to discuss topics, on which we differ 
more or less widely from our fellow-christians, I will 
define at the outset the view of human nature, com- 
monly termed total depravity. The fairest mode of 
doing this is by quotations from the Assembly's cat- 
echism, which is still accepted as the standard of doc- 
trine in the Calvinistic churches of Great Britain and 
America. The words of this catechism, which I will 
not undertake to interpret,- are as follows : l God 
created man in his own image, in knowledge, right- 
eousness and holiness, with dominion over his crea- 
tures. When God created man, he entered into a 
covenant with him upon condition of perfect obedi- 



HUMAN NATURE . 



117 



ence, forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge 
of good and evil, upon pain of death. Our first 
parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, 
fell from the estate wherein they were created, by 
sinning against God. The covenant being made 
with Adam, not only for himself, but for his posterity, 
all mankind, descending from him by ordinary gen- 
eration, shine d in him, and fell with him in the first 
transgression. The sinfulness of that state, where- 
into man fell, consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, 
the want of original righteousness, the corruption of 
his whole nature, which is commonly called original 
sin, together with all the actual transgressions which 
proceed from it. All mankind by the Fall lost com- 
munion with God, are under Ins wrath and curse, and 
so made liable to ah the miseries in this life, to death 
itself, and to the pains of hell forever. This consti- 
tutes the misery of that estate, whereinto man fell. 5 
Though this jargon is still acknowledged as the 
standard of faith, probably very few in our own com- 
munity would pretend to interpret it, or would own 
themselves believers in the appalling consequences, 
which might be derived from it. There are perhaps 
few, who would assert, in so many words, that the 
unconscious infant lies under God's wrath, and curse, 
and is, by virtue of his birth, into the world, without 
any sinful act of Iris own, liable to the pains of hell 



118 HUMAN NATURE. 

forever. But it is now generally maintained by those 
called Calvinists, first, that human nature sustained a 
radical change after Adam's first transgression ; se- 
condly, that Adam, as the representative, [the federal 
head, as their phrase is,) of the whole human family, 
involved all his posterity in his own guilt; and, 
thirdly, that in some sense or degree men are now 
born sinners. These propositions demand, each a 
separate examination. 

1. It is maintained, that human nature sustained a 
radical change after Adam's first transgression. This, 
if true, is a historical fact, of which we might with 
reason expect to find some record in the Bible. We 
however look in vain for it. The Mosaic narrative 
says nothing of such a change. Man's place of resi- 
dence was indeed changed. He was driven from 
Eden, and a life of labor was appointed him. But 
would he have been left in indolence, had he been 
innocent ? Labor is the fundamental law of all 
spiritual worth and progress ; and we cannot suppose> 
that, if man had not transgressed, he would have 
been exempt from it. God could never have de- 
signed an earthly paradise for man's permanent 
abode. The law, ' subdue the earth,' which was a 
law of arduous labor, was given before the fall ; and 
the garden of Eden was but the cradle of man's intel- 
lectual infancy, in which he was fostered, till he 



HUMAN NATURE. 119 

became sufficiently conversant with outward objects, 
to manage his own affairs 'with discretion. Had he 
not sinned, he would still, for his own sake, have 
been removed from the garden, though he would have 
sought the wilderness in a more cheerful and hopeful 
spirit, than that, in which, after his transgression, he- 
entered upon the stern, yet salutary discipline of a 
laborious life. But, when he went forth, no curse 
was uttered upon him, or upon the partner of his 
guilt. The condition of mortal life was unfolded to 
them ; but it was not so much as hinted, that its con- 
dition would have been essentially otherwise, had 
they remained innocent. Indeed, the veiy appoint- 
ments of toil and physical suffering are those, on 
which the blessing of God most manifestly rests, — 
those, from which proceeds the surest growth of virtue 
and piety, — those, on which the divine example of the 
innocent Savior sheds its brightest rays. But, could 
it be maintained that man's condition on earth was 
essentially modified by Adam's sin, still this would 
prove nothing with regard to his nature ; nor can it 
be pretended, that there is the slightest allusion in 
the Bible to the change of his nature, as a historical 
fact. 

But the change of man's nature is inferred from 
the earliness and frequency of human guilt ever since 
Adam, — from the fact that sins are among the first acts 



120 HUMAN NATURE. 

of every man's moral agency. But the eating of the 
forbidden fruit is the only recorded act of Adam's and 
Eve's moral agency. They yielded to the first 
temptation, when surrounded by what seemed to be 
constraining motives to obedience. Certainly there 
never was a first sin so wanton, or so difficult to be 
accounted for as theirs. Of every other tree in the 
garden they might eat. The express voice of God 
had charged them not to eat of this. Gratitude 
hope, fear, all conspired to ensure then obedience. 
But they fell as soon as they were tempted. What 
more have their children done ? Their sin was of 
the same kind with most of the sins of their pos- 
terity, that is, the yielding of principle to impulse, — 
the seizing of a momentary gratification, without 
thought, at the time, of duty, or of consequences. If 
the sins of their posterity, then, prove their nature to 
be depraved, equally does the first transgression of 
Adam and Eve prove, that they were created with 
a depraved nature. There is, in the case of the first 
parents and in that of their posterity, an identity, 
which militates strongly against the idea of any 
change of nature after the fall. 

2. It is maintained by our Calvinistic brethren, that 
Adam, as the representative or federal head of his pos- 
terity, involved them all in the guilt of his first trans- 
gression. This doctrine assumes for its basis, the 



HUMAN NATURE. 121 

following alleged facts. God made at the outset a cove- 
nant with Adam in behalf of all mankind, the conditions of 
which covenant were, that, if Adam remained innocent, he 
and all his posterity should enjoy eternal life, but that, if 
he sinned, he and all his posterity should go into everlast- 
ing punishment. Adam consented thus to stand for the 
ivhole race. They all, therefore, sinned in and through 
him as their head or representative. This is expressly 
the doctrine of the Assembly's catechism. It is 
almost too absurd to demand an answer ; and might, 
at first thought, seem too revolting to our instinctive 
notions of right and justice, to deserve a respectful 
treatment. But it has been, and still is believed by 
many worthy and good men ; and therefore ought 
not to be passed over in silence, or with sneers. 

It seems a fatal objection to the doctrine just stated, 
that no mention is made in the Bible of a covenant 
between God and Adam; nor is the slightest hint 
anywhere given of Adam's acting in behalf of his 
posterity. Then again, Adam had no right to act- 
in their behalf. A representative must be author- 
ized, — he was not authorized. You and I never 
gave him a poiver of attorney to obey or sin in our 
stead ; nor is it in the nature of things possible, that 
we should be morally responsible for his acts. We 
may indeed feel their consequences ; but we cannot 
11 



122 HUMAN NATURE. 

be involved in their guilt, unless we authorized him 
to act for us. 

Yet again, supposing that Adam had had the power 
of making such a covenant, his making it would have 
been his first transgression, and a sin infinitely more 
heinous than his eating the forbidden fruit, nay, a sin, 
for which his name ought to be forever accursed 
among men. Suppose that I had the power of cove- 
nanting, that, whatever sins I might commit, they 
should impart a guilty taint to my remotest pos- 
terity, would you not think me less a man, than a 
fiend, to consent to such a covenant ? 

The only passage of scripture commonly quoted 
in support of tins idea of Adam's federal headship, is 
that, where St. Paul says that, ' as by one man sin 
entered into the world, and death by sin, even so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;* 
and also, that ' by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners.' # But the whole of the sentence last 
% quoted, is, ' For as by one man's disobedience many 
were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall 
many be made righteous.' Now how are many made 
righteous by Christ s obedience ? Manifestly by copy- 
ing it, and in no other possible way, — by feeling its 
influence, and obeying its example. In like man- 
ner, (if there is any force in the apostle's compari- 

* Romans v. 12 — 19. 



HUMAN NATURE. 123 

son,) are many made sinners by Adam's disobedience, 
by following it, by imitating it, by yielding to like 
temptations. But, in this same connection, the apos- 
tle says, that ■ death reigned from Adam to Moses, 
even over them that had not sinned after the simili- 
tude of Adam's transgression,' by whom, Doddridge, 
(whose orthodoxy as a critic none will question,) 
says, and rightly, as I think, that infants were in- 
tended. Now, if Adam sinned in behalf of his pos- 
terity, infants, having sinned in and through him, 
could not have been excluded by the apostle from a 
share in his guilt. Moreover, this phrase, the simili- 
tude of Adam's transgression, is of prime importance, 
as defining the sense of the whole passage. The 
human race in general is here spoken of by St Paul 
as somehow connected with the sin of their first 
parent. The apostle speaks of some, who are not 
thus connected, and describes them as not having 
' sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression.' 
The inference is irresistible, that the rest of mankind 
were spoken of as connected with Adam's sin, be- 
cause they had ' sinned after the similitude of his 
transgression,' and that their connection with him 
was that of similarity or imitation. Let it be also 
borne in mind, that this ' similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression ' could not have existed in any of his pos- 
terity, if the race had undergone a change of nature ; 



124 HUMAN NATURE. 

but the similitude did, and does exist, if his posterity, 
with a nature as pure as his, have, in general, fallen 
into sin as wantonly and as promptly as he did. 

Once more, the idea of Adam's having bound the 
whole race in the guilt of his first transgression is 
opposed to very many express declarations of holy 
writ, of which it may be sufficient to quote the fol- 
lowing, than which I can conceive of nothing more 
decisive. ' The son shall not bear the iniquity of the 
father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of 
the son : the righteousness of the righteous shall be 
upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be 
upon him.'* 

3. It is maintained, (and perhaps the idea in the 
minds of many professed believers in man's native 
depravity, may amount to little more than this,) that 
men are in some sense or degree born sinners, — that 
eveiy man comes into the world depraved, that is, 
averse from all that is good, and inclined to all that 
is evil. With regard to this notion, the first question 
is, — is God the creator of every individual human 
being that is now born, so that men and women of 
the present day may, in any proper sense, be termed 
his workmanship and his offspring ? If so, and if 
man be born depraved, then does God create that, 
which is positively bad and evil, — that, which is 

* Ezekiel xviii. 20. 



* 



HUMAN NATURE. 125 

utterly opposed to his will and law, -?— that, in which 
he can take no pleasure, — ~ that, which he must 
needs view from the first with positive displeasure 
and abhorrence. Now it is the height of absurdity 
to maintain, that an almighty being can create what 
he hates and abhors, or that an infinitely good and 
holy being can create 'what is essentially evil and 
vile. It is intrinsically necessary, that whatever God 
creates should be good, very good, perfect in its kind 
and for its purpose. What he creates must neces- 
sarily be the transcript of his own ideas, and there- 
fore pure as he is pure ; nor can I conceive of a 
fouler blasphemy, than to ascribe to the eternal 
Father the authorship of what is intrinsically vile 
and hateful, 

But I apprehend that the advocates of the popular 
doctrine of depravity are not, in general, chargeable 
with this blasphemy. Their phraseology would seem 
to imply, that God was the Creator of Adam and 
Eve only, — that he is not in any proper sense the 
Creator of the men and women that now are, — that 
the Greek poet was mistaken, when he said, ' For 
we are also his offspring.' They attribute to Adam, 
rather than to God, the authorship of human nature 
as it now is. But I am content to rest the truth, that 
God is the Creator and Father of all men, on the 
simple doctrine of a paternal Providence as revealed 



126 HUMAN NATURE. 

in the Bible. I cannot believe, that they, the hairs 
of whose heads are all numbered, that they, who 
are bidden to dismiss all doubt and care because God 
carelh for them, are thus dependent on any other 
being than their Maker, — are thus kept and blest by 
any other than their Father. And, if God be their 
Maker and their Father, I know that their nature 
must be good, however frail, and however much 
they may have perverted it. 

I have thus attempted to analyze, and to refute in 
detail, the popular doctrine of depravity. There are, 
however, several general observations to be made 
upon it. 

The idea of native depravity is opposed to our own 
consciousness. We do not feel as if sin were 
natural to us. There are portions of our nature, that 
always rise up against it. We always feel, that 
we were made for something better. We are stung 
with self-reproach -when we sin, which could not be 
the case, were sin natural ; for whatever is in accord- 
ance with nature must needs be satisfying and agree- 
able to the nature, with which it accords. We never 
sin without a motive, whereas, "were we natively 
depraved, we should sin spontaneously, and from the 
mere love of sin. Bad men, the worst men never 
sin for the sake of sinning ; but act kindly and do 
right, when they are not expressly urged to sin by 



HUMAN NATURE. 127 

appetite or passion. You may ask your way to a 
particular place, of the vilest sinner living ; and, un- 
less he has some immediate motive for misleading 
you, he will point out the right way, with a minute- 
ness and assiduity proportioned to the intricacy of the 
road, and to the inconvenience which might result 
from your not rinding it. Do you not suppose that it 
is one of the rarest of events, for a man to be in any 
such matter misdirected or deceived, from the 
mere caprice of wickedness, without some special 
motive of cupidity or revenge? Yet, were men 
natively depraved, they would be perpetually mis- 
guiding and circumventing each other, for the mere 
love of evil ; and it would require a selfish motive, in 
order for an unregenerate man to tell the truth, or to 
perform the most common act of neighborly courts sy 
or kindness. 

Those who have been most familiar with crime, your 
Howards, your Fryes, and your Tuckermans, those 
who dive down, into the lowest depths of depravity 
to seek and save its victims, will tell you, that they 
find none utterly depraved ; and that, even among 
those, who have been strangers to every humanizing 
influence, who have been born and brought up in the 
most pestilential atmosphere, and within the very 
gates of death, there are to be traced the filaments of 
noble powers and lofty sentiments. They will bring 



128 HUMAN NATURE. 

forth for you, from among the offscourings of all 
things, as we are too prone to deem them, striking 
traits and instances of sympathy, pity, persevering kind- 
ness, fidelity, self-sacrifice. They will tell you of a 
quick moral sensibility and a tender conscience among 
these outcasts, with regard to the few things, in which 
their duty has been made known to them. They will 
tell you of yearnings and aspirations for goodness and 
for purity, even in the dens of the grossest pollution. 
And do not all these tilings betoken a nature made in 
the image of God, and noble still in its debasement 
and defilement? Such developments of character 
cannot be traced to any kind or degree of moral 
culture ; for they are often witnessed where there has 
been no culture, but, on the other hand, every possible 
form and mode of vicious example and influence from 
the cradle. The elements of good, that are found in 
persons thus trained, God must have lodged in their 
natures, as they came from his hands, — else they are 
an effect without any assignable cause. 

The phenomena of infancy and childhood, also' 
rebut the idea of native depravity. There is, in the 
young spirit, a simplicity, an ingenuousness, which 
can bear no kindred with a sinful nature. In the 
fountain of being, as it first rises, there is a transpa- 
rent purity, which indicates that it can gush from no 
polluted source. The moral sensibilities of young 



HUMAN NATURE. 129 

children are always in the right direction ; their moral 
intuitions marvellously clear and true. They are, 
indeed, easily and often led astray, — their impulses 
are strong, their power of resistance weak ; yet the 
prompt tear of penitence when they sin, and the 
panting earnestness, with which they hasten to seek 
forgiveness of their human parents, and, when rightly 
directed, of their Father in heaven, sufficiently show 
' the work of the law written in their hearts.' And 
how quick do their eyes glisten at the recital of a 
good deed, — how strong their loathing for all that is 
ungenerous, base, and vile ! How free their love, — 
how slow their hatred, even under unkind or harsh 
treatment ! The closer my acquaintance with little 
children, with the more utter horror and loathing do I 
turn from the remotest approach to the doctrine of 
native depravity. I feel, when with little children, 
that I am very near the pure fountain of life. They 
seem to me fresh from the baptism of a Father's 
blessing. I see his signature on their innocent brows, 
on their guileless spirits. I can sympathize in full 
with the beautiful 'words of a favorite poet : 

c A boundless wealth of love and power 

In the young spirit lies, — 
Love, to enfold all natures 

In one benign embrace, — 
Power, to diffuse a blessing wide 

O'er all the human race ! ' 



130 HUMAN NATURE. 

But to think that there is depravity in those young 
spirits, as God sends them forth, — to think that there 
is more of evil than of good in what we, parents, are 
accustomed to hail as God's best gift, — to believe 
that there is a frown of divine displeasure, a sentence 
of damnation, hanging over the sweet babe, — to 
believe that the child, as yet incapable of discerning 
between good and evil, can even need pardon or 
redemption, — oh it would separate me from my little 
ones. I would sooner go into the wilderness, and 
live a hermit, than look upon them with the eye, with 
which I must view them, did I believe that either God 
or Adam had made then sinners. Not mine should be 
the hopeless, despairing task, of attempting to repair 
the work, which God had sent into the world defiled 
and ruined. 

The idea of man's being born a sinner will also appear 
unreasonable, when we consider the nature of sin. 
'"Sin is the transgression of the law.' The very idea 
of sin implies wrong volition on the part of the sin- 
ner. A thing or being may be, by nature, defective, 
ill- constructed ; but sin must be a matter of personal 
choice. 

But, could we admit as possible the doctrine of 
native depravity, it would render sin in its active 
forms impossible, or rather, it would make that, which 
we now call goodness, sin. The utmost that can be 



HUMAN NATURE. 131 

expected or demanded of any person, is that he should 
be. and do what, in his very nature, God has fitted 
him to be and do. The nature of a person includes 
all his perceptions, instincts, impulses, powers, and 
faculties. In a sinful nature, these must all be evil 
so that to do evil would be the right and appropriate 
work of such a nature ; while, in order to be or to do 
good, it must violate the fitness of things, depart 
from the analogy of other beings, and thwart the 
purposes of its creation. A sinful nature and account- 
ability for moral evil cannot coexist. If God has 
given me a sinful nature, he gave it to me with the 
design and expectation that I should do evil, and evil 
only. I may then say with perfect fitness, 

1 Evil, be thou my good ; ' 

and, if I can claim any praise or benefit at God's 
hands, it will be for cultivating and exercising my 
evil propensities, for making myself as bad as I can, 
and doing as much evil as I can. If he has given me 
an evil nature, I should offend him and incur his just 
displeasure, by trying to be good or to do good. 
If I am blameworthy, and penally accountable to 
God, for my sins, (and my own conscience and the 
word of God both tell me that I am,) it must be 
because he has given me a nature fitted for duty and 
for goodness. 



132 HUMAN NATURE. 

The scriptural argument for man's native depravity 
is almost too slender to claim attention. The leading 
proof-text for this doctrine has already been made 
the subject of discussion. I know of but two others, 
which it is necessary to notice. One is the expression 
of David : ' I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did 
my mother conceive me.'* One must strongly mis- 
apprehend the design and spirit of this psalm, in 
looking to it for an explicit, formal statement of theo- 
logical dogmas. This psalm was the expression of 
David's intense anguish and remorse for one of the 
most flagitious crimes, with which a human being was 
ever stained. His agony of contrite sorrow was 
commensurate with the enormity of his guilt ; and 
the language of passionate grief and self-reproach is 
always hyperbolical. At such a moment, how natu- 
rally would his earliest sins, the sins of very infancy, 
like the ghosts of the long buried, have flashed upon 
his mental vision, and called forth vehement expres- 
sions of the deepest self-condemnation! And how 
natural an expression of those early sins are the 
words now under consideration, especially when we 
consider the highly impassioned style, in which the 
whole psalm is written ! There is no greater hyper- 
bole in these words, viewed as referring to the sins of 

* Psalm li. 5. 



HUMAN NATURE. 133 

childhood and youth, than there is in the following 
words in the same connection: ' Purge me with hyssop, 
and I shall be clean : wash me, and I shall be whiter 
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that 
the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.' We 
do not suppose that David's bones had actually been 
broken, or that he expected to be whiter than snow ; 
why not then apply to the words under discussion the 
same rules of interpretation, which must confessedly 
be applied to these expressions ? But, whatever is 
meant by these words, it is evident beyond a shadow 
of doubt, that David did not write this psalm as a 
careful, logical statement of doctrine, but merely as a 
humble, heart- stricken confession of sin before God, 
As such, it is to be read, interpreted, felt, and made 
profitable for reproof, and instruction in righteousness. 
The other proof-text, to which I would make par- 
ticular reference, is this : ' We all had our conversa- 
tion in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling 
the desire of the flesh and of the mind ; and ivere by 
nature children of wrath, even as others.'* St. Paul 
is here addressing those recently converted from 
idolatry, and has spoken of then former sinful habits, 
which had subjected them to the divine displeasure. 
He adds : ' We Jews also led a similarly sinful life 

* Ephesians ii. 3. 
12 



134 HUMAN NATURE. 

before our conversion, and were by nature, that is, in 
our former condition, as much the subjects of the 
divine displeasure, as much the children of wrath, 
as you were.' And the moral, which St. Paul deduces 
from this statement, is, ' By grace are ye saved,' that 
is, christian privileges came, not because you or we 
deserved them, but through the free, unpurchased 
mercy of God. The phrase, by nature, St. Paul else- 
where employs to denote condition, as, for instance, 
where he says, ' We who are Jews by nature, and not 
sinners of the Gentiles.' # 

But the scriptural argument against the doctrine of 
native depravity, and in behalf of the rectitude of 
human nature as it comes from the Creator's hand, is 
full, far beyond our need, and to the utmost limit of 
our desire. 

In the first place, the almost numberless recogni- 
tions, in the Bible, of man's moral accountability and 
of a future retribution, imply the native rectitude of 
human nature ; for, in the precise proportion, in which 
human nature is depraved, man's accountability 
ceases, and he ceases to merit punishment for his 
sins. 

Again, man is constantly addressed and treated in 
the Bible, as if he had within himself the means of 
forming a correct moral decision in many cases, 

* Galatians, ii. 15. 



HUMAN NATURE. 135 

though, not the capacity to frame a perfect rule of 
conduct. Our Savior asked the people, ' Why even 
of yourselves judge ye not what is right ? ,% He was 
in the constant habit of appealing to men's con- 
sciences, as if conscience had a real existence, and 
were always on the side of virtue. St. Paul speaks 
of the Gentiles, who have not God's revealed law, 
as ' doing by nature the things contained in the law,' 
as ' being a law unto themselves,' and as ' shewing 
the work of the law written in their hearts,' t — all 
which is utterly inconsistent with the idea of native 
depravity. 

Again, our Savior speaks of little children, in a 
way, which shews that he saw no marks of depravity 
in them. When he wished to rebuke the unholy 
strife of Ms apostles, he ' called a little child unto 
him, and set him in the midst of them, and said, 
Verily, I say unto you, except ye be converted, and 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven.'t When little children were 
brought, that he might bless them, instead of desig- 
nating them as the children of perdition, and as lying 
under God's wrath and curse, he said, ' Of such is 
the kingdom of heaven.'^ These texts are with me 
decisive, as to our Savior's opinion of human nature ; 

* Luke xii. 57. f Romans ii. 14, 15, 

% Matthew xviii. 2, 3. $ Matthew xix. 14. 



136 HUMAN NATURE. 

and I desire to look no farther. I am sine that the 
nature, whose most recent and genuine representa- 
tives Christ pronounced nearest the kingdom of 
heaven, must be a good nature, and worthy of its 
Maker and Father. 

I might accumulate scriptural proof indefinitely ; 
but I have given you as much as you can need. 

I have, in this lecture, occupied myself chiefly in 
exposing and combating a radically false view of 
human nature. But, while I would not abase, I 
would not inordinately glorify human nature. I be- 
lieve it good and pure, yet frail. All man's appetites, 
impulses, powers, and innate sentiments, are good in 
themselves ; and, fitly balanced, and employed in 
right directions and on worthy objects, must conduce 
to his own true good, and to the glory of his Maker. 
But let then balance be deranged, or let any of them 
be misdirected, they become ministers of sin and 
sources of evil. The bodily appetites are good in 
themselves, and, if confined to their lawful gratifica- 
tion, never interfere with man's virtue. The native 
emotions of the soul are all equally innocent; it is 
only excess or misdirection, that can make them sin- 
ful. The affections are the crown and joy of life ; 
and, while fixed on worthy objects, are the unfailing 
means of pure happiness and vigorous spiritual 
growth. But human nature is composed of cravings, 



HUMAN NATURE. 137 

desires, and capacities, which, must at first be nour- 
ished, and directed through the agency of others, 
often through, indiscreet, sometimes through wicked 
agency, and almost always through the blended 
agency of many, in which some faulty ingredients 
can hardly fail to mingle. Hence the sins of infancy 
and childhood ; and the doctrine of native depravity 
ascribes to the Almighty's workmanship what is due 
to our rude, or weak, or foolish handling of it, — 
ascribes to nature what flows from education. 

But the hour forbids my pursuing this train of re- 
mark ; and I close by barely pointing out two impor- 
tant practical uses of the doctrine, which it has been 
the aim of this lecture to establish, namely, that God 
sends every human spirit into the world pure, free 
from all stain of sin, and endowed with no powers or 
affections, which are not good in themselves, and 
capable of a worthy and virtuous direction and de* 
velopment. 

1. This view magnifies the evil of sin, and makes 
transgression against God a fit ground for the deepest 
self reproach and the most hearty penitence. Did I 
believe that God had given me a sinful nature, I 
could not reproach myself for sin ; for God would be 
the sinner; — I could not repent; for I should be 
conscious of no blame. But if God has made me 
upright, and I have sinned against the good and pure 
12# 



138 HUMAN NATURE. 

nature which he has given me, — if I have violated 
the laws of my own being, and made that, which he 
ordained for life, death, — then I have abundant 
reason for contrite sorrow. The sin is mine. I am 
not tempted of God. I can cast no reproach on the 
Author of my being. I must lay my hand upon my 
mouth, and my mouth in the dust, and cry, unclean, 
unclean. 

2. The view, which regards human nature as na- 
tively sinless and pure, cherishes humility. Did I 
believe myself utterly depraved by nature, I can 
hardly set limits to what my pride would be, on ac- 
count of whatever slight and imperfect degree of 
virtue I might possess ; for it would be so much 
raised from a barren and blighted soil. It would be 
a worthy ground for boasting. But if God has given 
me a nature perfectly adapted to his service, and 
capable of all things high and holy, and if I have, 
in ways and times without number, departed from 
the dictates of that nature, violated its laws, cramped 
or distorted its energies, neglected its culture, and 
suffered wild grapes to grow on the vine of God's 
careful planting and watchful husbandry, then must 
I feel humbled in view of what God has done and I 
have not done, of what he has given and I have not 
rendered back. 



LECTURE VI. 



REGENERATION. 



JOHN III. 3. 



EXCEPT A MAN BE BORN AGAIN, HE CANNOT SEE THE 
KINGDOM OF GOD. 

The connection, in which the conversation with 
Nicodemus occurs, casts so essential light upon the 
meaning of our text, that I will commence my dis- 
course by calling your attention to it. Unfortunately, 
the arbitrary division of chapters breaks the thread 
of the narrative, which includes the last three verses 
of the second chapter, — ' When Jesus was in Jerusa- 
lem in the feast day, many believed in his name, 
when they saw the miracles which he did,' that is, 
believed in him theoretically, acknowledged him as a 
divine teacher, but without submitting their hearts 
and lives to his teachings. ' But Jesus did not com- 
mit himself unto them,' — did not repose entire trust 
in them, — did not admit them to a confidential footing ; 
for he placed no value upon mere profession or a 
mere barren belief. ' He knew all men,' read their 



140 REGENERATION. 

characters, ' knew what was in man ; ' and bestowed or 
withheld his confidence accordingly. Under this 
general statement, to illustrate the mode in which 
Jesus dealt with those, to whom ' he did not com- 
mit himself,' the evangelist now brings forward 
the case of Mcodemus as an individual example. 
There was one of these intellectual, yet not spiritual 
converts, ' Mcodemus, a ruler of the Jews,' who, for 
fear of losing caste among the Pharisees, ' came to 
Jesus by night,' no doubt with the purpose of secur- 
ing his favor, whenever his star should be on the 
ascendant. He came with a profession of the belief, 
at which he had arrived on the feast-day, — ' We 
know that thou art a teacher sent from God ; for no 
man can do these miracles that thou doest, except 
God be with him.' Jesus, knowing what was in the 
man, and perceiving that his heart had not been 
touched by ' the word of the kingdom,' makes to him 
the declaration, which I have taken for my text, 
1 Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God.' By this we must obviously under- 
stand our Savior as saying to him, ' Mcodemus, it is 
not enough for thee to believe me a divine teacher, 
miraculously empowered and endowed. It is not 
enough for thee to be willing to follow me outwardly, 
when wealth and honor shall be in my train. 
Wouldst thou truly be my disciple, thou must be 



REGENERATION. 141 

mine inwardly, in principle and character, — thou 
must be a different man, a new man, — thou must be 
born again.' 

With regard to this passage, several erroneous 
views have been maintained. Some have supposed 
these words addressed to Nicodemus as a Jew, and 
have understood them as referring merely to the 
change of opinion, necessary in order for him to 
become a christian. But, as we have have seen, this 
change had already taken place, at least as far as it 
took place in the apostles during their Master's life- 
time; for they ceased not to be devout Jews on 
account of their allegiance to Jesus. Nicodemus 
already believed Jesus to be a divine teacher. The 
change, which remained to be •wrought in him, was 
that of principle and character. 

It has been maintained by the Romish church, and 
by many members of the English and American 
Episcopal church, in whose service-book the idea is 
distinctly recognized, that baptism, even infant bap- 
tism, is the regeneration here spoken of; for, in ampli- 
fying his meaning, our Savior says, ' Except a man 
be born of ivater, and of the spirit, he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God.' But, in my opinion, tvater 
in this verse does not even refer to christian baptism ; 
but to a form of baptism, with which Nicodemus was 
well acquainted. When the Jews received a prose- 



142 REGENERATION. 

Iyte into their fold, it was their custom to baptize, or 
wash with water, him and his whole family; and, 
after this process, they were accustomed to call the 
proselyte neiv-bom, or one born again. Now our 
Savior introduces the water in this discourse, to signify 
to Nicodemus, that it was no such superficial process 
that he intended by the new birth, that a washing 
with water was not enough, and that something 
inward, not outward, must be wrought, in order to 
constitute true regeneration. ' Except a man be born, 
not merely of the water, which you deem enough to 
admit a man to the privileges of Judaism, but also of 
the divine spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of 
God' 

We have arrived, then, at the conclusion, that it is 
no mere change of opinions, nor yet a mere outward 
rite or profession, that is implied in being born again ; 
but that the phrase denotes something inward and 
spiritual. Nicodemus stood with reference to Chris- 
tianity, precisely as the great mass of those born in 
christian countries and baptized in infancy, now 
stand, — hi the attitude of intellectual belief, but not 
in that of moral obedience ; nor is there any ground, 
on which the requisition of the new birth could have 
been made of Nicodemus, on which it should not 
also be made of every person of mature understand- 
ing, who is not already, in heart and life, a sincere 



REGENERATION. 143 

and devoted follower of Christ. We are now pre- 
pared to answer the following questions, with refer- 
ence to e-egeneration. What is regeneration? 
Is it essential to every human being ? Is it instanta- 
neous, or gradual ? Is it an indelible process ; or may 
the regenerate fall from their high estate ? By what 
agency is it effected ? What evidences of it hi our- 
selves may we deem sufficient ? What evidences of 
it should we seek in others, as a prerequisite to 
christian fellowship ? 

I. What is regeneration! I hardly need tell you 
that regeneration and being born again are synony- 
mous, — the former being a word of Latin derivation, 
equivalent to the latter in Saxon English. The idea 
is that of a second birth. There are various orders 
of beings that are born twice. The butterfly is born 
at first a caterpillar, a mere earthworm, an unsightly, 
grovelling creature, without any apparent means of 
rising higher or becoming more beautiful. He is 
born again, a light, airy, beautiful being, with wings 
of gold and scarlet, the playmate of the zephyrs. 
Yet, when you examine his body, it is still the cater- 
pillar, the earthworm, though etherealized, — the same 
shape, though endowed with an elasticity and beauty, 
to which before it was an utter stranger. And so 
likewise, in the caterpillar, there were the unseen 
rudiments of those beautiful wings, — the power, in 



144 REGENERATION. 

its hidden germ, of that graceful flight. Thus his 
new birth is not a change, but a development of his 
nature, — not a new creation, but the putting forth of 
portions of his being, previously dormant. Man too, 
in order to be what God means that he should be, 
must be born twice. For he is at first born merely 
an animal being and a child of earth, — with powers, 
that fit him for a residence here, and the enjoyment 
of outward and earthly good, — with propensities, that 
dispose him to a grovelling life, without any aim 
beyond the present sphere of being. He is born 
indeed with spiritual capacities, but they are like the 
caterpillar's wings, at first unseen, folded, dormant ; 
and, before they manifest themselves at all, the ani- 
mal nature has acquired a decided, fearful preponder- 
ance and supremacy. Thus, when the spiritual 
nature at length begins to put forth, it generally finds 
itself overshadowed and dwarfed by the animal, so 
that it remains altogether subordinate, verifying in 
him, who has been born but once, the words of the 
wisdom of Solomon : * The corruptible body presseth 
down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth 
down the mind that museth upon many things/ 
Therefore is it that a man must be born again, — born 
into the spiritual world, — born again, not by a change, 
but by a development of his nature, by the expand- 
ing of those wings of praise and prayer, that have 



REGENERATION. 145 

remained folded and unused, by his entering upon a 
new sphere of being, and becoming a citizen of the 
unseen and spiritual world. 

At the butterfly's first birth, his ethereal powers and 
tendencies are bound up, and crippled by the terres- 
trial. By his second birth, the ethereal element is put 
forth with sufficient vigor to buoy up and etherealize 
the terrestrial. In like manner, by virtue of man's 
first birth, the body weighs down and cramps the 
spiritual nature ; but, by the second birth, the spiritual 
nature is drawn forth with an energy sufficient to 
subdue and spiritualize every bodily appetite and 
passion, and to make the body a willing servant of 
the soul. ' That which is born of the flesh is flesh/ 
earthly, sensual ; ' that only, which is born of the 
spirit, is spirit.' A spiritual state of the heart, of the 
affections, of the conduct, must be the result of a 
new and spiritual birth, just as an animal and earthly 
life is the result of the first birth of a human being 
into the outward world. As, by being born of the 
flesh, we bear the image of the earthly, so, by being 
born of the spirit, must we acquire the image of the 
heavenly. By our first birth, the animal nature has 
and keeps the supremacy ; regeneration is the pro- 
cess, by which the spiritual nature acquires and 
retains the supremacy. By virtue of our first birth, 
we dwell upon the earth, and are adapted to it ; by 
13 



146 REGENERATION. 

regeneration, we enter the kingdom of God, the spirit- 
ual world, and are fitted for its society, its duties, and 
its joys. By our first birth, we become heirs of the 
infirmities and ills of a mortal life ; by regeneration, 
we acquire the powers and properties of an immortal 
being. 

II. "We next ask : Is regeneration essential to every 
human being ? Can none but the regenerate enter the 
kingdom of God ? Oar very definition of regenera- 
tion answers this question sufficiently. ' Flesh and 
blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' For what 
is the kingdom of God ? It is a society of all good 
and faithful spirits, bound together by the love and 
service of the Almighty. It is a kingdom, whose 
law is piety and duty, whose life is prayer and praise. 
It is a kingdom, where spiritual relations alone are 
recognized, — where all dwell as children of God and 
brethren in Christ. Now it is absurd to maintain 
that man, any man, is born into this outward world, 
with powers, tastes, and habits, that fit him for such a 
society. It is absurd to maintain that any man can 
be fitted for this society, without a new development 
of powers and affections, on the full exercise of which 
he does not enter by virtue of his birth into the out- 
ward world. 

The innocent child needs to be born again ; for he 
brings into the world, not indeed a sinful nature, but 



HE GENERATION, 147 

a nature, whose better part unfolds not at once. And, 
in order for him to become fit for the kingdom of 
heaven, his spiritual nature must be developed and 
made supreme, which it is not in infancy, though it 
may be in early childhood. Perhaps in some in- 
stances, but seldom, regeneration is the result of 
education alone, so that the child's first choice is that 
of God, and duty, and spiritual pursuits and pleasures, 
and his character, from the earliest period of his 
moral agency, is a religious character. I say that this 
is probably the case but seldom, not because I think 
it intrinsically unnatural. On the other hand, I re- 
gard it as the natural result of such an education, as 
a child ought to have. But a thoroughly religious 
education has no doubt been exceedingly rare ; for, 
of religious parents, there are too many, who give 
their children a worldly education ; and, when parents 
do all that they ought and can, still they divide the 
education of their children with many persons and 
influences adverse to the spiritual life. For these 
reasons, most persons, if not all, live, for a longer or 
shorter period, a merely animal or worldly life, with 
little thought of spiritual things, with little taste for 
religious pursuits or enjoyments. And this life, how- 
ever harmless, is a life of sin, because passed in the 
neglect of known duty. In this case, regeneration 
£s a double process. It includes a pulling down, as 



148 REGENERATION. 

well as a building up, — a death to sin, as well as a 
spiritual birth, — the putting off of the old man, as 
well as the putting on of the new man, — the dethro- 
ning of flesh and sense, as well as the enthroning of 
God in the heart, — in fine, conversion, an entire 
change of character, a new heart, a new life. The 
infant needs to be regenerated, — you cannot say 
that he needs to be converted ; for, if not probable, 
it is at least theoretically possible, that his regenera- 
tion may be effected by education alone. * But in 
him, who has once willingly lived, for however short 
a season, a merely animal or worldly life, regeneration 
can take place only by means of conversion. 

But how is it with those, who die too young to 
have formed religious characters ? They, I reply, need 
regeneration, as much as if they had lived ; for they 
have been for the most part obedient to mere bodily 
instincts, and they die with their spiritual natures 
undeveloped. They have indeed, wrapped within 
their souls, the power of an angelic and immortal 
destiny ; but it is folded and dormant, and needs, in 
order that they maybe fit for heaven, to be expanded, 
and made quick, powerful, and supreme. But. the 
infant dies sinless. He has no unholy desires, no 
evil habits, no unworthy loves, to make him wretched 
in the world whither he goes ; and he goes where 
no fault, or error, or negligence in his education can 



REGENERATION. 149 

render his regeneration doubtful, or make sin possible, 
He goes into the immediate presence of a Father, 
whose love must at once pervade and fill his unoc- 
cupied heart ; for the innocent need only to know 
God, in order to love him. And the work of regen- 
eration, which, in the world's imperfect school, it 
might have taken years to accomplish, may be the 
work of hours or moments in that higher school, 
where Jesus is the teacher. 

But how - is it with virtuous heathen, who have 
been faithful to the light that they have enjoyed, but 
have attained so inadequate views of duty and of 
divine truth, that their characters must needs fall very 
far short of that of the regenerate christian ? I an- 
swer, that, if they have governed their hearts and lives 
by the best rules of duty known to them, their regen* 
eration has commenced, — they have acquired a love 
of duty, the habit of self-denial, a spiritual frame of 
mind, all which are traits of the regenerate character. 
They have the rectitude and singleness of purpose, 
the hunger and thirst after righteousness, requisite for 
their entrance into the Redeemer's fold. All that 
they need, to bring them to the stature of the perfect 
in Christ Jesus, is religious knowedge ; and the body 
is the veil, that hides that knowledge from them. 
As soon as the veil is rent away, they behold their 
God and their Redeemer, — light bursts at once upon 
13* 



150 REGENERATION. 

their disembodied spirits, completes their regenera- 
tion, and thus fits them for heaven. 

But, not only these of preeminent lustre amidst 
surrounding darkness, not only those, whom we are 
accustomed to call the great and good men of hea- 
thenism, — many, very many others, I believe, will 
come from the east and the west, from the north and 
the south, and take their places among the children 
of the kingdom, — yes, literally among the children 
of the kingdom, in the place, on the footing of little 
children. While my own conscience tells me, that if 
I, and such as I, fail to clothe ourselves with all the 
graces of the regenerate heart, we shall be most 
righteously cast into the outer darkness, and, what- 
ever we suffer, shall know and feel that God is just, 
I cannot believe that those, who, whether in heathen 
or in christian lands, have not had the opportunity of 
religious culture, are all to forfeit heaven. No ; I be- 
lieve that God reveals some portion of his law to 
every rational being, however ignorant or degraded. 
I believe that there is some one thing, in which those 
altogether born in sin know their duty, that there is 
one talent committed even to the least privileged of 
the race, and that, if that one talent be improved, or 
that one duty discharged, the opportunity for complete 
regeneration, not vouchsafed to them on earth, may 
be afforded in heaven. The keeping of the law in 



REGENERATION. 151 

one point, if that one be the only point, on which the 
law is known, must make the sonl willing and glad 
to keep the whole law, when the whole is revealed. 
Wherever, among the outcast and down-trodden on 
pagan or christian soil, among those, who have had 
around them only depraved examples and corrupt in- 
fluences, with not a ray of gospel light or a word of 
christian teaching, — wherever, I say, among such, 
and in the midst of heart-sickening vice, there is a 
single beautiful trait of character, be it truth, or fidelity, 
or sympathy, or compassion, or benevolence, or a mere 
consciousness of degradation and misery, a vague, 
yet earnest longing for something purer and better, 
and a preparation of soul to hail the light if it should 
come, — such spirits, I believe, are among those to 
whom the Judge will say, not, ' Depart, ye cursed,' but, 
' Come unto me, ye weary ones and heavy laden, and 
I will give you rest.' I believe that such spirits need 
only the light of heaven to regenerate them, while, 
for those who have buried or wasted either the one 
talent or the ten, there can be reserved only the doom 
of the wicked and slothful servant. C ertainly there 
is, there must be in the judgment, a world-wide dif- 
ference between those to whom the Judge can say, 
' Ye have both seen and hated both me and my 
Father,' and those, who had not the offer of salvation 
distinctly made to them, but who would have leaped 
with joy, had it reached them. 



152 REGENERATION. 

I should be sorry to think that I have a single 
hearer, so much a stranger to the love of God and 
the spirit of Christ, as to deem me a setter-forth of 
lax and dangerous doctrines, because I can, in deep 
and thankful sincerity, lay up a hope in heaven for 
those, to whom on earth no door of hope is opened. 
It is no lax doctrine for us. The law, that, where 
much is given, much will be required, but that, where 
little is bestowed, little will be demanded, is a law of 
uncompromising strictness and severity for you and 
me, who have known only the clear sunlight of gos- 
pel privilege. No one can place higher than I would 
the responsibilities of those, who have the means of 
knowing Christ. But I earnestly protest against 
making the harsh and gloomy views, that one may 
take with regard to the unprivileged and benighted, a 
standard of piety. To the shame of christians, this 
is often done ; and I have known the piety of minis- 
ters of the gospel called in question, for no other 
reason, than that they maintained that the heathen 
would not be cast in a body into everlasting torments. 
I should be half disposed to hurl back the accusation, 
were it not written, 'Judge not, that ye be not 
judged;' for I cannot but feel that the man, who 
cherishes such sentiments, and myself, believe and 
worship two entirely different Gods. 

III. We next inquire, Is regeneration instantancous y 



REGENERATION. 153 

or gradual? To man's eye, it must generally appear 
gradual; for the influences, which God commonly 
employs to convert the soul, are gradual. Our Savior 
also compares the growth of religion in the heart of 
man to the growth of grain, ' first the blade, then the 
ear, after that the fall corn in the ear.' No doubt, 
many of what are called sudden conversions are 
gradual, (indeed, most of the cases of that kind, 
with which I have been conversant, have been so,) 
the particular event, or season of excitement, to 
which they are ascribed, being the occasion, rather 
than the cause ,of their development In such 
cases, there has been a long series of unseen strug- 
gles, suppressed groanings, secret penitential regrets, 
heartfelt aspirations for holiness ; and the religious 
character, which shoots up before man's sight with 
an apparent suddenness, to the divine eye is the 
growth of months or years. The phenomena of such 
a conversion, (if we may compare joyful things with 
fearful,) might be likened to the eruption of a vol- 
cano, which, to the ignorant beholder, seems sudden, 
but to effect which, subterranean fires may have been 
burning for a century. But there are undoubtedly 
other cases, in which regeneration is really a very 
rapid process, — in which an immense amount of 
inward emotion and effort is crowded into an exceed- 
ingly brief period. God's convicting and converting 



154 REGENERATION. 

spirit sometimes seems to fall like lightning from the 
heavens. We have seen those who have professed, 
and seemed, to come at once out of midnight dark- 
ness into God's marvellous light. Yet in most 
instances, and, as I cannot but think, in the most 
hopeful cases, the dawn first reddens, and the day- 
star rises, and the sky becomes bright and beautiful 
so gradually, that one can hardly say when night 
gives place to day. 

In all cases, however, there is, doubtless, to the 
divine eye, a moment when the new birth takes 
place, when the scale turns, when the natural man 
loses, and the spiritual man gains the supremacy, 
when duty, piety, and heaven, assume the mastery 
over meaner passions and affections. The character 
always has for its index the ruling love, — the pre- 
dominant aim, desire, or purpose, — the one master 
principle, which gives, as it were, the key-note to the 
whole life. Now a literal equipoise of the character, 
for more than a single moment, is hardly possible. 
The character must, at every moment of a man's 
existence, (even if the preponderance be slight,) be 
either worldly or spiritual ; and, though a man may 
not be able to mark for himself the moment when the 
scale turns, — though, when he undertakes to deter* 
mine it, he may antedate or postdate it-— yet it can 
hardly be otherwise than a moment distinctly marked 
by the divine eye. 



REGENERATION. 153 

IV. Our next question is : Is regeneration an indeli- 
ble process; or can those, ivho have been born again, 
so Jar fall back into sinful habits, as to forfeit the bless- 
ings of the christian covenant ? To this question I 
would reply, that the regenerate state is in itself a 
most hopeful one, and that it includes within itself 
great prospect and promise of perseverance, and even 
abundant reason to expect restoration from the first 
stages of declension and backsliding. The change 
of character, which it implies, is a truly momentous 
one. The heart is new; the life is new. There- 
generate person has entered upon a new and attract- 
ive sphere of being, — has joined himself to a society, 
which can hardly fail to draw him constantly heaven- 
ward, — has commenced the discharge of duties, 
which are sanctifying in their very nature, — has 
begun to enjoy pleasures, which never cloy, but 
which sustain the constant desire to seek them yet 
again. The regenerate person has of course begun 
to lead a life of prayer ; and there is abundant ground 
for the hope, that he, who has felt the comfort and 
joy of prayer, will not abandon it, and, while he 
still maintains the habit of prayer, he cannot fall back 
into a life of sin. The regenerate person has learned 
to look at objects, events, and his fellow beings, in 
their spiritual relations and aspects ; and points of 
view once acquired we do not readily lose, so that 



156 REGENERATION. 

there is strong hope that he, the eyes of whose 
understanding have once been opened, will not close 
them again. Above all, the regenerate person is the 
subject of peculiar aid and guidance from above, 
which will not be lightly or capriciously withdrawn, 
but can only be forfeited by long continued negli- 
gence. And even when the regenerate person has 
once departed widely from the christian covenant, or 
begun to wax cold and careless, he has, in his past 
experience of the blessedness of God's service, 
remembrances to smite him through with godly sor- 
row, and to call him back to the fold from which he 
is wandering. There will be, in the recollection of 
times of perfect religious peace and reconciliation, a 
voice breathing the sentiment of our beautiful hymn : 

' "What peaceful hours I once enjoyed ! 
How sweet their memory still ! 
But they have left an aching void 
The world can never fill.' 

And, stung with the memory of a peace once his, 
now shut out from his soul, there is hope that he will 
lift the cry : 

? Return, O holy Dove, return, 
Sweet messenger of rest ; 
I hate the sins that made thee mourn, 
And drove thee from my breast. 



REGENERATION. 157 

{ The dearest idol I have known, 
Whate 'er that idol be, 
Help me to tear it from thy throne, 
And worship only thee.' 

Thus true is the doctrine of the perseverance of the 
saints to our reasonable hope, with regard to those, 
who have once been invariably renewed. But this 
doctrine, as a positive, arbitrary, unbending dogma, 
without abatement or exception, is false, ensnaring, 
and dangerous. It is opposed to reason, experience, 
and scripture ; and, by creating a fatal consciousness 
of security, it does more than anything else can, to 
make itself false in individual cases. Very many fall, 
because they feel so sure that they can never fall. 
Very many continue in sin, because they know that 
they have once been regenerated, and they feel assured 
that, whatever they do, they cannot fail of heavenly 
blessedness. But there is nothing in the religious 
character to make it intrinsically ineffaceable. As it 
can be kept strong and growing only by exercise unto 
godliness, so it may be frittered away by lack of 
exercise. 

Moreover, the scriptures refer so often to the possi- 
bility of apostacy on the part of the regenerate, that 
it fills me with unfeigned surprise, that it should ever 
have been regarded as impossible by any, who pro- 
fess to take the Bible for their standard of doctrine. 
14 



158 REGENERATION. 

How constantly are the saints exhorted to steadfast- 
ness and perseverance, all which exhortations are 
foolish and absurd, if the saints cannot fall away. 
St. Paul could surely have had no doubt of his own 
regeneration ; and yet he speaks of his diligent self- 
discipline and mortification of the flesh, — ' lest that 
by any means when I have preached to others, I my- 
self should be a cast-away.' * St. Paul is addressing 
regenerate persons, when he says, ' Grieve not the 
holy spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the 
day of redemption.' f The writer to the Hebrews, so 
far from saying that the regenerate cannot fall away, 
expressly speaks of the impossibility, (by which we 
are to understand, I suppose, the extremest difficulty,) 
of renewing again unto repentance those who fall aivay, 
after they have been ' once enlightened, and have 
tasted of the heavenly gift, and have been made 
partakers of the holy spirit, and have tasted of the 
good word of God, and the powers of the world to 
come.' % 

V. We now arrive at the question: By ivhat 
agency is regeneration effected? By God's, or man's ? 
I reply, by both. The true doctrine is implied in that 
text of St. Paul : ' Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling ; for it is God that worketh in you 

# 1 Corinthians ix. 27. f Ephesians iv. 30. % Hebrews vi. 4 — 6. 



REGENERATION. 159 

both to will and to do of his good pleasure.' # It 
used to be a mooted question in theology, whether 
God or man must take the first step in man's regen- 
eration. But it is almost too foolish a question to 
discuss, and one, which a child ought to be able to 
answer from his first catechism. For has not God 
himself, by his own infinite mercy, forever barred out 
such an inquiry as this? Has he not drawn nigh 
to us from the very dawn of our moral being, in the 
countless blessings and healing sorrows of his provi- 
dence, — in the religious aspects and voices of na- 
ture, — in the teachings, warnings, promises of the 
gospel, — in the example, the love, the reconciling 
blood of Christ, — in secret visitings of his spirit, 
which we all have felt, which we cannot escape or 
shut out, and in which, in what countless instances 
has he verified to each of our hearts the words, ' Be- 
hold, I stand at the door and knock ! ' Yes. And in 
every step that we take on the path to eternal life, is 
the Father with us, keeping our feet from falling, and 
our souls from death. We enter the outward world, 
and gain bodily strength and vigor, only because in 
him we live, and move, and have our being, — be- 
cause he sustains this marvellous machine in tension 
and activity, keeps in tune the harp of thousand 
strings, supplies nature's waste from his own foun- 

* Philippians ii. 12, 13. 



160 REGENERATION. 

tain of life, propels the warm current through every 
limb and every vein. Equally, it seems to me, does 
the soul's true life now unceasingly from him. From 
him proceed all holy desires, good counsels, and just 
works. His working in us is the essential condition 
of our spiritual health and activity. 

Yet, in regeneration, our will must consent with 
his. There must be a determined choice and effort 
on our part. The vows of penitence, the meditations 
on our Father's and our Savior's love, the holy reso- 
lutions, the heavenward strivings, by which we are 
to be born again, must flow from our own free will 
and purpose ; nor can we be inwardly renewed, with- 
out our own earnest and diligent effort, our own 
voluntary prayers, our own free-will offering, and 
cheerful, whole-hearted consecration of body, soul 
and life to our Master's service. Aid from God we 
shall hideed have, and must have, at every step. It 
will be in the strength that he gives us, that we shall 
endure and conquer. But God's aid, essential and 
powerful as it is in the spiritual life, is not irresistible. 
God helps us, as a judicious father helps a child, 
whom he is unwilling to control, while he earnestly 
desires that he should decide and act rightly. Such a 
father gives his son kind advice, surrounds him with 
good examples and influences, furnishes him with 
the best materials of judgment; but still the son may, 



REGENERATION. 161 

from waywardness or passion, decide and act con- 
trary to the father's wishes. Of this nature are the 
influences of the divine spirit for man's regeneration, 
— influences, which may be grieved and quenched, 
or which may be made to bring forth fruit unto ever- 
lasting life. 

VI. We next ask : What evidences of regeneration 
in ourselves ought ive to deem sufficient ? This ques- 
tion it is the object of so much of my preaching to 
answer, that I the less regret the narrow space, in 
which it must be answered now. In general terms, 
spirituality of character is the sign that we have been 
born again. ' That which is born of the spirit, is 
spirit' If we are regenerated, we shall look at things 
in their spiritual aspects ; and shall regard our spir- 
itual relations and duties as of paramount importance. 
We shall delight in prayer. We shall habitually feel 
the presence of God, and shall refer our thoughts, 
words, and deeds, to his will and law, as to their only 
standard. Religious subjects, duties, and services, 
will always be welcome, and never a weariness or a 
burden. But the supreme law of the spiritual life is 
love, — love to God, — love to every child of God, — 
love to God with the heart and soul, the mind and 
strength, — love to man, tender, constant, forbearing, 
forgiving, ready to impart, glad to bless, rejoicing with 
14* 



162 REGENERATION. 

the happy, sympathizing with the afflicted, showing 
mercy to all. 

In the regenerate life also, we are united to Christ, 
as the branch to the vine. Our virtues grow from 
his. Our spiritual graces twine themselves about 
him as their tree of life. There is a conscious recep- 
tion of light and aid from his example and his spirit. 
We shall be able to say of tins sin, ' I have striven 
against it, because my Master forbade it ; ' and of 
that virtue, ' I have labored to acquire it, because I 
found it in the Lord Jesus ; ' and of our general tone 
of character and habits of life, ' I am what I am, be- 
cause I have been with Jesus, and learned of him, 
and humbly striven to follow him in all things.' 

These hints may supply heads of self-examination, 
which I have not time to draw out as I could wish ; 
and they must needs recal to my stated hearers the 
tests of christian character, which they are wont to 
hear set forth from this pulpit. 

VII. I hasten to our closing inquiry. Wliat evi- 
dences of regeneration should we seek in others, as a pre- 
requisite to christian fellowship ? None but the all- 
seeing God can tell with certainty, who are the 
regenerate, and who the unsanctified. In the chris- 
tian church, the wheat and the tares must grow 
together till the harvest. Therefore, while, in judg- 
ing of our own spiritual state, we should make our 



REGENERATION. 163 

standard of christian character as high as possible, in 
determining with whom we will hold christian fel- 
lowship, we should so shape it, as to include even 
1 the least in the kingdom of heaven.' By making 
our terms of fellowship thus broad, we may indeed 
embrace some, whose names are not written in the 
book of life ; but we had better treat as christian 
brethren ten false pretenders to the name, than reject 
one, whom Christ has received. 

Let us beware how we make our own creed, or 
ritual, or views of duty on any points that admit of 
question, a standard for our brethren. On these 
points, we are as liable to err as they are ; and they 
have the same right to condemn us, that we have to 
condemn them. But there are two tilings, which we 
may expect to mid in the subjects of christian regen- 
eration, and the lack of either of which would compel 
us, however reluctantly, to doubt the christian char- 
acter of one, who on any ground sought to be recog- 
nized as a christian. One of these relates to profes- 
sion ; the other to practice. 

1. The first is a willingness to own Christ as an 
authoritative teacher, and as the one appointed 
Mediator between God and man, and, as a conse- 
quence of tins, habitual reverence for his name, his 
gospel, and every thing that he has made sacred. 
Clnistian fellowship is a fellowship in Christ, and 






164 REGENERATION. 

not out of him. If, therefore, he be disowned, his 
name blasphemed, and his gospel set at nought, by 
any men of virtuous life and conversation, we may 
and should give them full credit for whatever virtues 
they manifest, and whatever good they do ; but it is 
absurd to think of them as subjects for christian 
fellowship. Were we, on account of their good lives, 
to call them christians, we should be conferring a 
name, which is not ours to give, but can be given 
only to those, for whom it is appointed by the Father; 
and he surely cannot have appointed it for any, by 
whom it is despised or undervalued. 

2. The other essential prerequisite to christian 
recognition is a general outward conformity to the 
unquestioned rules of duty, — a generally virtuous 
life and conversation. "We are not to look for perfec- 
tion in others, while we are conscious of falling far 
short of it ourselves. But we may expect in those, 
who are renewed through the grace of Christ, some 
good degree of conformity to Ins image and spirit. 

But, after all, the best rule is, for us to be as close 
and thorough as we can be, in the judgment of our 
own hearts ; but always to bring to the judgment of 
another's character that charity, which ' thinketh no 
evil, believeth all things, and hopeth all things.' 

I trust that this discussion, though in the form of a 
doctrinal exposition, may not pass, without leading 



REGENERATION. 165 

my hearers to diligent self-examination as to the 
momentous question of their own regeneration. Of 
this question, my friends, nothing can take prece- 
dence. The time is hastening on for each of us, and 
for some is doubtless near, when it will be echoed in 
the thunder tones of approaching death. Let it be 
put and answered by each of us before he sleeps ; 
and, whatever our amiable traits of character, what- 
ever our endowments of mind and heart, if not sanc- 
tified by christian faith and the spirit of self-conse- 
cration, let us hear, as from the lips of him, whose 
words are God's eternal truth, ' Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,' 



LECTUEE VII. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



2 CORINTHIANS V, 18, 19. 

THE MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION, TO WIT, THAT 

GOD WAS IN CHRIST, RECONCILING THE 

WORLD UNTO HIMSELF. 

The atonement will be the subject of the two re- 
maining lectures of this course. I commence with a 
few remarks on the word atonement, and its use in the 
scriptures. Atonement is at-one-ment, reconciliation, 
the bringing together, or at one, of those who have 
been at variance. It is a word employed but once in 
our translation of the New Testament ; and that is in 
the following passage : ' If, when we were enemies, we 
were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much 
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. 
And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our 
Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received 
the atonement,' that is, the reconciliation just spoken 
of. # The same Greek word occurs elsewhere, but is 

* Rom. v. 10, 11. 



THE ATONEMENT. 1 67 

rendered reconciliation. It is the word so rendered in 
our text. The word atonement is often used in our 
translation of the Old Testament ; but there it simply 
means ritual purification, and can have no reference 
to reconciliation between God and man, since atone- 
ment is said to have been made for inanimate objects, 
as for the altar, and for a house infected with leprosy. 
The Hebrew word rendered to atone, denotes to cover 
or smear over ; and it no doubt came to imply purifica- 
tion, from the ceremonial smearing of the persons or 
tilings purified, with oil or with blood. 

Atonement, reconciliation between God and man, 
through Christ, through his death, is the doctrine of 
all christian believers. The question at issue is, 
Which party did Christ reconcile to the other, — God 
to man, or man to God ? Some suppose that Christ 
died to reconcile God to man, to appease the divine 
wrath, to make God willing or able to forgive man's 
guilt. Others maintain that God never was, and 
never can be alienated from his human family, so as 
to need atonement ; but that it is man, alienated from 
God by sin, that needs and receives the atonement, 
and that Christ lived and died to reconcile guilty man 
to a Father of unchangeable love. The latter is the 
view, which you have always heard from this pulpit. 
The former is the theory of that branch of the church 
called Calvinistic. The Calvinistic doctrine stated 



168 THE ATONEMENT. 

more in detail, is this. God lias affixed to every sin, 
nay, to original sin derived from Adam, the penalty of 
eternal torments. God's justice forbids him to forgive 
man's iniquity, unless this penalty be in some way 
satisfied. Christ interposed, and took upon himself 
the weight of agony and torment, which those who 
are forgiven would otherwise have borne, and, be- 
cause he thus suffered in their stead, they go clear. 
This doctrine, with slight modifications, is held by the 
majority of our christian public. One of these modi- 
fications introduces the idea of imputed righteous- 
ness, maintaining that, as men, though personally 
guiltless, are made sinners by the imputation of 
Adam's guilt, so those, who are. saved, though per- 
sonally destitute of holiness, are made holy by the 
righteousness of Christ imputed to them. This is a 
notion so opposed to common sense, so self- contradic- 
tory hi its terms, and so generally laid aside by its for- 
mer advocates, as to claim only the most cursory notice. 
Another modification of the popular doctrine is, that, 
though Christ may not have suffered the full amount 
of what was due to man's guilt, yet what he suffered 
was accepted by the Father as a full equivalent for 
what man ought to have suffered. But the main 
idea of this doctrine, in all its modifications, is sub- 
stitution, vicariousness, one's standing in another's 
stead, and bearing what he ought to have borne. 



THE ATONEMENT. 1G9 

The first remark to be made upon this doctrine is, 
that it is nowhere distinctly stated in the scriptures. 
This its advocates admit. They maintain that it is 
strongly implied in several scattered texts in the apos- 
tolic epistles, and in one or two in the prophet Isaiah. 
But is it conceivable that a doctrine of such infinite 
moment should not have been explicitly stated in the 
Bible ? It is, I think, admitted on all sides, that a vi- 
carious atonement was not distinctly taught by our 
Savior in any of his recorded discourses, and that, 
when he died, his immediate followers were as igno- 
rant of the purpose of his death, as they were at his 
nativity. But why was this ? He often spoke of his 
approaching dissolution ; why did he make no disclo- 
sure of its purpose ? By the statements, which he 
did make, he manifestly failed to reconcile his disci- 
ples to his departure from them ; but, had he once told 
them that God could not pardon the penitent without 
his dying, they would have understood that it was 
expedient for them that he should go away. Nor yet 
does our Savior make any additional disclosure on 
this point after his resurrection. 

The vicarious atonement, one would suppose, must 
have formed, if true, an essential part of the preach- 
ing of the apostles. But in the discourses preached 
by Peter and Paul to congregations, that were listen- 
ing to christian instruction for the first time, we find 
15 



170 the atonement: 

not a word of this doctrine, now regarded by so 
many as the cardinal point of the gospel scheme. 
Yet, through these discourses, converts were made 
by thousands ; and these, not converts of an hour, 
but such as ' continued steadfastly in the apostles' 
doctrine and fellowship.' 

Equally little do we find of this doctrine in the 
writings of the christian fathers of the first three 
centuries. The idea of substitution, or of a price 
paid to appease the divine justice, cannot be traced 
in any of their works now extant, though among 
these works are creeds, defences, apologies, and 
avowed statements of the whole christian system. 
This fact is admitted, and referred to with surprise, by 
orthodox commentators upon the writings of the 
fathers. Flacius, a learned pupil of Luther, says 
that the christian writers of the primitive age ' dis- 
coursed, like philosophers, of the law, and its moral 
precepts, and of the nature of virtue and vice ; but 
they were totally ignorant of man's natural corruption, 
the mysteries of the gospel, and Christ's merits.' 
The same writer, speaking of Eusebius, the ecclesi- 
astical historian, (who flourished early hi the fourth 
century, and than whom none stood higher in the 
church on the score of learning or authority,) says, ' It 
is a very low and imperfect description, which he gives 
of a christian, making him only a man, who, by the 



THE ATONEMENT. 171 

knowledge of Christ and his doctrine, is brought to the 
worship of the one true God, and the practice of so- 
briety, righteousness, patience, and other virtues. 
But he has not a word about imputed righteousness.' 
I cannot forbear quoting the well-m erited and 
delicate irony, with which Lardner dismisses these 
passages from Flacius. ' Poor, ignorant primitive 
christians, I wonder how they could find the way to 
heaven. They lived near the time of Christ and his 
apostles. They highly valued, and diligently read 
the holy scriptures, and some of them wrote com- 
mentaries upon them ; but yet, it seems, they knew 
little or nothing of their religion, though they em- 
braced and professed it with the manifest hazard of 
all earthly good tilings ; and many of them laid down 
their lives, rather than renounce it.' 

These considerations certainly furnish a strong pre- 
sumption against the doctrine under discussion, yet 
cannot be regarded as conclusive ; for they have 
been admitted by its most intelligent advocates and 
defenders. Let us then analyze the doctrine, and 
see on what foundation it rests. 

It assumes for its basis the position, that God's law 
annexes eternal punishment to every sin, without 
reference to the repentance or reformation of the sin- 
ner. This is an idea wholly unsustained by scripture, 
and supported mainly by fragments of texts, which, 



172 THE ATONEMENT. 

quoted entire, would imply the opposite doctrine. It 
is stated as the stern, unbending law of God's reveal- 
ed word, ' The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' This 
is indeed a part of the law as revealed through Eze- 
kiel. But the prophet adds : ' But if the wicked will 
turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and 
keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and 
right, he shall surely live, he shall not die. All his 
transgressions that he hath committed, they shall not 
be mentioned unto him : in his righteousness that he 
hath done he shall live. Have I any pleasure at all 
that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God : and 
not that he should return from his ways, and live?'* 
Now I am utterly unable to discern the propriety or 
the honesty of quoting the first portion of this pas- 
sage as the eternal moral law of God, and omitting 
the latter part. All through the Old Testament, the 
promise of pardon to the penitent is connected with 
the denunciation of punishment against the sinner. 
1 If they shall confess their iniquity, then will I re- 
member my covenant,' was God's uniform declara- 
tion to the nation of Israel. The whole spirit of the 
Old Testament towards sinners is expressed in these 
words of God through Ezekiel : ' When I say unto 
the wicked, Thou shalt surely die ; if he turn from 

* Ezekiel xviii. 20 — 23, 



THE ATONEMENT 173 

his sin, and do that which is lawful and right ; if the 
wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had 
robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without commit- 
ting iniquity ; he shall surely live, he shall not die.' * 
Is it said that this law of pardon had reference to the 
intended sacrifice of Christ, — to 'the Lamb slain 
from the foundation of the world ? ' This is an entirely 
gratuitous assumption, not only unsustained by scrip- 
ture, but opposed to certain very plain declarations of 
the New Testament, which represent Christ's mission 
as the consequence, not the cause, of God's forgiving 
mercy. Such are these texts, which might be multi- 
plied indefinitely. ' God so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth 
in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.' t 
1 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he 
loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our 
sins.' % ' God ivas in Christ, reconciling the world unto 
himself ' h 

But it is maintained that divine justice forbids the 
pardon of the penitent. Now, by justice as applied 
to God, we either mean some attribute, of which we 
have no knowledge ; or else we mean the same attri- 
bute, which we denominate justice between man and 
man. If the former, then whatever we affirm or 

*Ezekiel xxxiii. 14, 15. % 1 John iv. 10. 

j John iii. 16. §2 Corinthians v. 19. 

15* 



174 THE ATONEMENT. 

deny with regard to the divine justice is mere hap- 
hazard assertion, and one assertion is as good as 
another. But to my mind nothing is more certain 
than this, — that, when God reveals himself to man- 
kind as merciful, and/Wy, and Just, he means, that he 
is possessed of those attributes, which all men desig- 
nate, and which good men cherish and practice, as 
mercy, holiness, and justice. Now let me put the 
question to your hearts and consciences, is it unjust to 
forgive the wrong-doer, when he repents ? If my 
neighbor has done me a very great injury, and now 
repents of it, is it unjust for me to forgive him ? You 
would think me beside myself, were I to ask the 
question seriously, and with regard to a case actually 
in hand. In forgiving my penitent neighbor, I wrong 
no one. I give him "what I take from no one else ; 
for mercy grows by exercise. I give him what I owe 
him as a fellow-being and a legitimate object of sym- 
pathy and charity. If your little child has been diso- 
bedient, and is now sorry for it, do you regard it as 
unjust for you to forgive him? Are you unrighteous, 
because, on account of his regret for his fault and his 
promise of amendment, you forbear the chastisement, 
which the fault persisted in might seem to merit ? 
No ; for you only give to the child from that fountain 
of paternal love, which God caused to well up with- 
in you for the child's benefit. You give the child 



THE ATONEMENT. 175 

what is rightfully his own. No more is God unjust 
in extending free, unpurchased mercy to his penitent 
child. 

Still farther, I contend that divine justice not only 
admits, but necessarily includes and implies, the for- 
giveness of the penitent sinner. It would be unjust 
for God not to forgive the contrite. That stem, flinty, 
inexorable vice, not virtue, which technical theologians 
have been wont to call justice, is not what they term 
it. Such a counterfeit of justice, if it exist any- 
where, is to be found with the devil and his angels. 
True justice is the perfection of goodness. It is a 
goodness, which does no wrong, 'which is impartial, 
and not a respecter of persons, which renders to all 
their due, and which, in every place and relation, 
discharges the appropriate offices of that place or 
relation. Now God is our Father ; and the justice of 
a father is firm, discreet, impartial, yet munificent 
affection. What title to the character of a just man 
could be claimed, think you, by that human father, 
who turned a deaf ear to the sincere penitence of 
his erring son ? To be sure, the son could base no 
claim upon his past merits. But the father would 
owe it to his own nature, to the spontaneous impulses 
of a paternal heart, to forgive him. He would do 
himself the most outrageous injustice by persevering 
in anger and in vindictive measures. Thus is it also 



176 THE ATONEMENT. 

with our Father in heaven. Though his erring chil- 
dren can build no claim on the ground of past merit 
or obedience, he yet owes to himself to forgive them. 
He would be unjust, false to his own nature, were 
he to despise the sighing of the contrite, and the 
desire of the penitent. He would, in that case, with- 
hold from men that, which, though they could not 
claim it on the score of merit, is their rightful due as 
his creatures, as his children. I maintain, then, that 
the forgiveness of the sincere penitent is an essential 
part of the divine justice. As such it is represented 
by the sacred writers. What could be more explicit 
on this point, than St. John's declaration : ' If we 
confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us 
our sins ? '* 

I next remark, that, if it is inconsistent with the 
divine justice not to forgive the penitent, it is still 
more so, to punish the innocent instead of the guilty. 
If justice has any signification whatever, it certainly 
includes and implies the rendering to each individual, 
and to no other in his stead or for his sake, the good 
or the evil that is his due. Apply the principle of the 
vicarious atonement to human affairs, and see how 
much wrong it would produce, of how much iniquity 
it would be the parent. We will suppose a case. A 
man has been sentenced to the penitentiary for for- 

* 1 John i. 9. 



THE ATONEMENT. 177 

gery, for a term of tiventy years: At the expiration 
of ten years, it is represented to the chief magistrate, 
that, at an early period of his confinement, he showed 
decided marks of deep contrition, that his conduct 
has been without exception exemplary, and that he 
will, undoubtedly, if pardoned, be a "worthy and valu- 
able member of society, in fine, that he is among the 
fittest subjects for executive clemency. The gover- 
nor says : ' Yes ; he surely ought to be pardoned. 
But the sentence must be executed. Go then, take 
him from his cell, and immure in his stead, for the 
next ten years, that good man over the way. He has 
never broken the law in any one point. He is the 
best citizen we have ; and there is no other man, by 
whose imprisonment the majesty of the law can be 
so well sustained.' Would you not infer, that this 
magistrate's conscience and moral sentiment had been 
paralyzed ? Would you not deem such a procedure 
the very climax of unrighteousness? Or suppose 
that one of my children had incurred some threatened 
punishment, but was now penitent for the fault, and 
that the other, an innocent, loving little creature, 
begged to be punished in her sister's stead, — you 
would never afterwards trust my judgment in mat- 
ters of right and wrong, if, even at the instance of 
the child's own compassion, I punished the faultless 
one, and let the guilty go. The native instinct of the 



178 THE ATONEMENT. 

human heart relucts at the very idea of a vicarious 
penalty, and demands that punishment be either 
remitted, or visited upon the offender in his own per- 
son. Now it is in the highest degree unbecoming 
and irreverent to ascribe to God a course of conduct, 
which we should reprehend and despise in man. 

But it is said, that to forgive the sin of the penitent, 
without laying its punishment on some other person, 
encourages sin. I have never been able to see the 
force of this objection to the doctrine of the free, 
unpurchased mercy of God. And, if it has any force, 
it belongs no less to the doctrine of vicarious atone- 
ment, than to that of free pardon ; for, in either case, 
repentance is the only condition required of the sin- 
ner. Nor can he be restrained from sin by an unwil- 
lingness to add to the sufferings of his substitute ; 
for, according to the popular doctrine, the punishment, 
and that an infinite one, has been already borne, and 
consequently cannot be increased by any additional 
amount of guilt. To my mind, forgiveness on the 
sole condition of repentance holds out a premium to 
goodness, not to sin. It keeps the prize of holiness 
within sight and reach of the sinner at every pause 
of his gnilty career, whenever conscience wakes and 
passion sleeps. It opens, from every corner in his 
path of sin, cross paths to the road, from which he 
has wandered. It cries at every step, ' Turn ye, turn 



THE ATONEMENT. 179 

ye ; for why will ye die ? ' It seems to me to imply 
the strangest confusion of ideas, to maintain that sin 
is encouraged by promises, which can be of no effect, 
till sin is repented of and forsaken. 

But we are told, that the burdened conscience 
needs a vicarious atonement, and can feel secure of 
forgiveness, only when it can behold its punishment 
laid upon another's shoulders. That this feeling is a 
very frequent element in religious experience I have 
no doubt. I believe that very many burdened con- 
sciences can find relief only through a vicarious 
atonement. But this state of feeling is created by 
the very doctrine, which it craves. Men feel thus, 
when under conviction of sin, because they have 
been taught to regard the Almighty as unwilling or 
unable to forgive sin without the substituted suffering 
of another, — because they have never had the infi- 
nite mercy of God presented to them as a ground of 
trust and hope, — because they have always had 
associations of wrath and vengeance connected with 
him, and thus have been constrained to look to 
the Son for that forgiveness, for which they have 
been forbidden to go to the Father. But where the 
Father's forgiving love is set forth as full, large, and 
free, the sin-burdened conscience can cast its burden 
upon him, though in utter self-reproach and self- 
abasement, yet without a shadow of doubt or fear. 



ISO THE ATONEMENT. 

I have thus far reasoned, as if the popular dogma 
of the atonement were consistent with the confessed- 
ly scriptural doctrine of the remission or forgiveness 
of sins. But it is not so. If the one be true, the 
other cannot be. If you owe me a sum of money, 
and your neighbor pays it to me in your stead, there 
is no remission of the debt on my part. If you injure 
me, and I punish your son or brother in your stead, I 
exercise no forgiveness. Vicarious punishment is 
not pardon ; but the two are at opposite poles of the 
moral universe. If God has taken fall punishment 
upon Christ, if he has exacted from him the full 
price, he has put it forever out of his own power to 
forgive sin, — he has blotted the very idea of pardon 
out of his book, — he has made the remission of sin, 
impossible. If Christ has paid my debt, I owe noth- 
ing. If Christ has borne my punishment, I am no 
longer liable to punishment. I therefore can no long- 
er be the subject of pardon, or of the remission of 
sins. But if there is any one doctrine, that gives the 
key-note to the whole New Testament, it is that of 
the forgiveness of sins ; and the dogma, which ren- 
ders this impossible, can have no place in the coun- 
sel of God. 

We might, were it necessary, show the absurdity 
of the popular notion of the vicariousness of Christ's 
sufferings, by a still farther analysis of the ideas, 



THE ATONEMENT. 181 

which it includes or implies. It is a doctrine held 
only by Trinitarians ; and to them the question may 
be fairly put, How can God punish God, or be pun- 
ished by God ? How can God pay a penalty to God, 
or cancel a debt due to God ? This difficulty was felt 
by some of the early advocates of the doctrine under 
consideration; and, to obviate it, they decided, (and 
such was the general belief of the church for several 
centuries,) that the price or penalty, paid by Christ, 
was paid to the devil, in lieu of the souls which 
Christ ransomed from his power. 

We might also ask, how is it in the nature of things 
possible, that Christ, an innocent, holy being, could 
have borne the punishment due to human guilt ? For 
in what does that punishment consist? It consists 
in the forfeiture of the divine favor, and of the sym- 
pathy and companionship of the good, in the stings 
of an evil conscience, in the undying goadings of 
depraved desire and unholy passion, in a state of 
protracted opposition to the divine government and 
disobedience of the divine law. It is a burden, which, 
from its very nature, could have been borne by no 
innocent being, least of all, by a being perfect, divine, 
and infinite. 

Is it said, that, in intense physical suffering, Christ 
bore the full equivalent of these inward torments due 
to the sins of the whole world? We ask, when; 
16 



182 THE ATONEMENT. 

where ? We read indeed of the agony of Gethse- 
maiie. But that, though intense and awful, was but 
for a brief season, and was sustained with a spirit so 
full of submission and of filial piety, as to make such 
woe, even if protracted through eternity, a heaven, 
compared with the torment of an unreconciled and 
rebellious soul. Then, at the crucifixion, there was 
the one exclamation, ' My God, my God, why hast 
thou forsaken me ? ' This, there is indeed some rea- 
son to suppose, was designed simply as a citation of 
the psalm commencing with these words, which con- 
tains many things applicable to Jesus. But if, (as 
seems to me more probable,) this exclamation was 
an expression of the feeling of the moment, it can- 
not have implied, that he deemed himself deserted 
by him, to whom, a moment afterwards, he said in 
the calm confidence of a child, ' Father, into thy hands 
I commend my spirit ; ' but it must have had reference 
to those outward circumstances of tribulation, which 
we are accustomed, to call the hidings of God's coun- 
tenance, so that it must be understood to mean, ' My 
God, why hast thou, in thine inscrutable wisdom, seen 
fit to leave me under such a weight of torture and of 
contumely?' But, with the exception of the agony 
in Gethsemane, and the inference that might be 
drawn, (wrongly, as I think,) from that momentary 
exclamation on the cross, the whole scene of the 



THE ATONEMENT, 183 

betrayal and crucifixion is so far from presenting the 
picture of one, who was enduring the eternal suffering 
of myriads compressed into a few hours, that it gives 
us rather the idea of a victory over suffering and 
death, so entirely won before the hour came, as to 
leave our Savior's spirit, with but a passing cloud, 
calm, free, unburdened, elastic, full of heavenly com- 
munings, and consciously in the bosom of the Father. 
But, supposing the popular doctrine of Christ's vica- 
rious suffering true, could such an inconceivable 
weight of anguish have been laid upon him, without 
having left, in the record of those hours, traces of an 
agony so unearthly, so infinitely surpassing the pre- 
vious imagination of beholders, that the cry of the 
suffering God-man would have thrilled through the 
universe, and the horror and despair of the appalling 
scene would have seemed like the opening of the 
bottomless pit, beneath the feet of those that stood 
by ? What ! A thousand times ten thousand, nay, 
uncounted millions of eternal, and therefore infinite, 
burdens of the most intense and hopeless torment 
of body and soul, and all these laid upon Christ's 
human nature, which is represented as finite, — is 
there any trace, or shadowing forth of this, anywhere 
in the sacred histoiy ? Calvin, perceiving this diffi- 
culty, maintained that Christ spent the interval 
between his death and his resurrection in hell, suffer- 



184 THE ATONE M E N T . 

ing there the utmost possible measure of torment and 
agony ; and, if the doctrine of a vicarious atonement 
be true, this supposition is indispensably necessary, 
to reconcile it "with the narrative of the evangelists. 

"We might also argue against the idea of a vicari- 
ous atonement from its manifest inconsistency with 
every statement of doctrine or duty, with every 
discourse or parable in the New Testament, which is 
capable of being considered in connection with it. 
Take, for instance, the parable of the master, whose 
servant owed him a thousand talents, — a parable, 
which was expressly designed to illustrate the divine 
forgiveness, and which Ave cannot suppose the great 
Teacher to have so framed, as to exclude the essen- 
tial conditions of forgiveness. Insert in this parable 
the vicarious atonement, — suppose the master to 
exact full payment of some other servant, — what a 
heartless mockery do you make of the words, ' He 
freely forgave him the debt ! ' 

To take another instance, the parable of the prodi- 
gal son was undoubtedly designed to exhibit God's 
mercy to the penitent. Insert in this the idea of 
vicarious punishment. Suppose the parable to read 
as follows, (and such must be its actual import, if the 
doctrine under discussion be true.) 'And when the 
Father saw the wanderer returning with every mark 
of contrite sorrow, he called the elder son, who had 
always served him, nor trangressed at any time his 



THE ATONEMENT. 185 

commandments, and said, My Son, my first-born 
and best beloved, here is thy lost brother coming back 
again, and begging for the bread of my house ; but 
the word has gone forth from my lips, that the child, 
who once leaves my house, shall never return ; and I 
know not how to remit tins sentence, unless thou 
wilt take upon thyself the shame, and woe, and suf- 
fering due to Ins waywardness.' Who does not 
perceive, that, with this gloss, the parable loses all 
its worth and beauty ? Nay, had it been thus written, 
instead of being oftener read, and more attractive, 
than any other portion of the Bible, it would have 
been almost repulsive enough, to have sunk into 
neglect and oblivion the gospel that contained it. 

I might refer you, in this connection, to the petition 
in our Lord's prayer, ' Forgive our debts, as we 
forgive our debtors.' One, who believes in the 
vicarious sufferings of Christ, cannot use tins petition 
with sincerity ; for he hopes to be forgiven in a very 
different way from that, in which he knows it to 
be his duty to forgive. God's forgiveness is often 
held forth in the New Testament, as a measure 
and an example for man's forgiveness. Upon what 
an appalling career of wrong and crime should we 
enter, were we to make God's forgiveness on ac- 
count of the substituted sufferings of the innocent, 
the measure and example for our own ! 
16* 



186 THE ATONEMENT. 

I next remark, that the doctrine of Christ's vicarious 
suffering represents God as a changeable being, — as 
indisposed at first to shew mercy, but made placable 
by the death of Christ. Take, for instance, the 
sentiment of one of Dr. Watts' s hymns, much used in 
our Calvinistic churches, in which, speaking of God's 
throne, he employs the following terrific language : 

' Once 't was a seat of dreadful wrath, 
And shot devouring- flame ; 
Our God appear'd consuming fire, 
And vengeance was his name. 

' Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood, 
That calm'd his frowning face, 
That sprinkled o'er the burning throne, 
And turned the wrath to grace.' 

Oh when I have heard these words read or sung, the 
image, that they have brought to my mind, has been 
the farthest possible from that of the Father God, of 
whom Jesus said, ' He so loved the world that he 
sent his Son.' They have, on the other hand, placed 
before me the semblance of a blood-thirsty fiend, at 
first ravening for his prey, and to be approached with 
safety, only when satiated with carnage. But has 
he, whose words are, ' I am Jehovah, I change not,' 
indeed sustained such an entire revolution of dis- 
position and character ? So says the theology of the 



THE ATONEMENT. 187 

schools. So says not the New Testament, which 
never represents Christ's mission and death as the 
cause of the Father's love, but always as its fruit and 
pledge. Indeed, it is to my mind a conclusive argu- 
ment against a vicarious atonement, that, wherever, 
in the New Testament, God is named in connection 
with the mediation and death of Christ, he is spoken 
of, not as the object of Christ's mission and atonement, 
but as its author, and as having originated it in love 
to men, that he might draw them to himself. 

But it is urged by the advocates of the popular 
doctrine, that Christ's death is often spoken of hi the 
scriptures as a sacrifice. This is indeed the case \ 
and I know of no term, which could have been more 
naturally and properly applied to the death of Christ, 
than this. His death was a sacrifice offered for the 
redemption of man. This, no christian doubts. The 
question is, was it a vicarious sacrifice ? That it was 
not, would appear from the striking, yet neglected 
fact, that, in the scriptures, Christ is oftener compared 
to a sacrifice, which was not even a sin-offering, namely, 
to the paschal lamb, than to any other part of the Jew- 
ish ritual. He is frequently called the Lamb, also, 
our passover. The figure is drawn out in full by St 
Paul in the following text : ' Christ our passover is 
sacrificed for us : therefore let us keep the feast, not 
with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice 



188 THE ATONEMENT. 

and wickedness ; but with the unleavened bread of 
sincerity and truth.' # The passover was a com- 
memorative festival, by which the Hebrews celebra- 
ted their deliverance from Egyptian bondage ; and 
the paschal lamb was the chief food of this anniver- 
sary supper. Christ in his death was likened to this 
lamb, because there clustered about his death 
associations of deliverance from a worse than 
Egyptian bondage, from the slavery of doubt, and 
fear, and sin; and also, because, in the christian 
festival designed to supersede the passover, bread, 
emblematic of the Savior's body broken on the cross, 
took the place of the paschal lamb. 

The vicarious atonement has been professedly 
sustained by analogies drawn from the Old Testa- 
ment ; but, in point of fact, there was no such thing as 
vicarious suffering under the Jewish law. Most of 
the Jewish offerings and sacrifices were not sin- 
offerings ; but either thank-offerings, offerings of 
firstlings and first-fruits designed chiefly for the sub- 
sistence of the priests and Levites, or offerings in 
acknowledgment of those unintended omissions or 
transgressions of the ritual law, to which no moral 
guilt was attached. Moreover, very many of the 
sacrifices were bloodless ones, offerings of fine flour, 
oil, wine, fruit, and grain. And in this connection, it 

* 1 Corinthians v. 7, 8. 



THE ATONEMENT. 189 

is an important and instructive fact, that the animal, 
made typically to bear the sins of the whole people, 
on the great annual day of atonement, was not slain. 
' The priest shall lay both his hands upon the head of 
the goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the 
children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all 
their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat ; 
and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man 
into the wilderness : and the goat shall bear upon him 
all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited : and he 
shall let go the goat in the wilderness.' # This is 
the only instance in the Old Testament, in which sin 
was said to be laid upon any animal, or in which 
language seeming to imply vicariousness or substitu- 
tion is used in connection with any part of the Mosaic 
ritual ; and, in this service, the animal was not made 
to sufFer in any form or way. But this was a part of 
the great annual confession-sendee or remission- 
service, in winch, if anywhere, the idea of vicarious 
^unering must needs have been introduced. This 
idea, however, cannot be traced in any portion or 
feature of the Mosaic dispensation. 

Sacrifice was, in fact, a symbolical form of wor- 
ship, which all nations have practiced in their infancy, 
and which", under the Mosaic law, was regulated and 
sanctioned, as still adapted to the imperfect culture 

* Leviticus xvi. 21,22. 



190 THE ATONEMENT. 

and rude habits of the covenant people. Under a 
low state of civilization, sacrifice was an obvious 
means of attesting the sincerity of the religious sen- 
timent. It was symbolical prayer or praise. He, 
who was penitent, fined himself in a sin-offering. He, 
who was thankful, showed the fervor of his gratitude 
by setting aside from his own use, and consecrating 
in some form accordant with the notions of his times, 
a part of that wherein God had prospered him, 
Christ's death bore, therefore, a closer analogy to the 
slaying of the paschal lamb, with its glad associations 
of deliverance and divine guidance, than to any other 
part of the ancient ritual ; and we can thus account 
for the frequency, with which the passover furnishes 
the sacred writers with the phraseology employed 
with reference to the crucifixion. 

Inasmuch as Christ's death was a sacrifice, what» 
ever view we may take of its object or its efficacy, it 
would have been very strange if the sacred writers, 
who were all Jews, had not often employed with, 
reference to it the word sacrifice, and the phrases usu- 
ally connected with that word. But it would have 
been still more strange, and certainly would have 
authorized the suspicion of some peculiar and myste- 
rious signification attached to this phraseology, if, em- 
ploying it with reference to the death of Christ, they 
had used it on no other subject. But such is not the 



THE ATONEMENT. 191 

case. They have used the word sacrifice, (and con- 
nected with it offer up and similar phrases,) with 
reference to a large variety of subjects. The follow- 
ing are a few of the instances. ' I beseech you, 
therefore, brethren, that ye present your bodies a living 
sacrifice.' # ' If I be offered upon the sacrifice and ser- 
vice of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.'t 
f I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things 
which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, 
a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.' -t ' Let 
us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that 
is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. 
But to do good, and to communicate, forget not ; for 
with such sacrifices God is well pleased.' § ' Ye also, 
as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy 
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable 
to God by Jesus Christ.' II From these examples, we 
see that nothing like vicarious suffering is implied in 
the frequent comparison of our Savior's death to the 
sacrifices under the Jewish ritual. 

Indeed, would we only interpret the sacred writings 
by the common laws and customs of speech, we 
should be at no loss for the origin of phraseology of 
the kind now under consideration. In figurative 
language, we constantly style beings, whether human 

* Romans xii. 1. § Hebrews xiii. 15, 16. 

t Philippians ii. 17. || 1 Peter ii. 5. 

| Philippians iv. 18. 



192 THE ATONEMENT. 

or divine, that we revere or love, by the names of 
objects which we peculiarly admire or prize. How 
frequently are such words as gem, jewel, diamond, 
applied to valued human friends. In like manner, 
Christ is called in the scriptures the morning star, the 
temple and the light of heaven, and the like. Now a 
devout Jew would have been more likely to have 
borrowed such titles for the Savior from the revered 
ritual, under which he had been born and educated, 
than from any other source. But the multitude 
and diversity of these titles, borrowed from the 
Jewish ritual, preclude any doctrinal inference, which 
might be drawn from the use of any one of them 
He is called not only a sacrifice, in the sense of a 
slain victim ; but also ' a sacrifice for a siveet-smelling 
savor,' * that is, an incense -offering, — then again, 
the mercy -seat, \ (for this, all sound commentators and 
critics admit, is the meaning of the word rendered 
'propitiation in the third chapter of the epistle to the 
Romans,) — then, the high priest, (frequently in the 
epistle to the Hebrews,) — then also the veil between 
the holy place and the holy of holies, t Now all 
these analogies are true, beautiful, instructive, and 
edifying. They all open rich veins of devotional 
thought and feeling, and reflect back upon the Old 
Testament rays of gospel light, which cover it with 

* Epliesians v. 2. f Romans iii. 25. $ Hebrews x. 20. 



THE ATONEMENT. 193 

the glory of the New, and shed around it the celestial 
halo, that encircled our Savior's own brows. But you 
will see at once, that, if these analogies had been 
designed to represent doctrinal facts, they could not 
all have been used. If, in a dogmatic point of view, 
Christ was a slain victim, he could have been also an 
incense -offering, — if an offering, he could not have 
been also the mercy-seat, on which no offering was 
laid, — if a sacrifice, he could not have been also the 
high priest, who offered sacrifice. These comparisons, 
which, if anything more than figures, clash so harshly 
with each other, must then be regarded as mere 
images, designed to shadow forth, under various 
aspects, the power, the love, and the sufferings of 
Christ. 

These figures occur chiefly in the epistle to the 
Hebrews, which was written mainly to impress. upon 
Jewish minds the spiritual majesty and beauty of 
Christianity. The Jewish converts missed, in Chris- 
tianity, the outward beauty of holiness, to which 
they had been accustomed, the solemn tread of the 
priestly train, the pompous ceremonial of the great 
day of expiation, the smoke of the daily sacrifice. 
The writer of this epistle aimed to reconcile those, to 
whom he wrote, to the simplicity of the christian 
system and ritual, by showing them, that, for every 
thing beautiful and glorious in Judaism, Christianity 
17 



194 THE ATONEMENT, 

offered something greater and more perfect of the 
same kind. The burden of the epistle is : ' God 
spake to the fathers by the prophets ; to us by his Son* 
Judaism has its succession of dying high priests, who 
must perform the same service over again every year ; 
we have an unchangeable high priest, who remains 
forever, and whose one service and oblation is forever 
sufficient. Under the old dispensation, there was a 
tabernacle, glorious and beautiful, made with hands; 
ours is a greater and more perfect tabernacle not 
made ivith hands.' Thus also, with numerous other 
particulars. If you will take this idea with you in 
reading the epistle to the Hebrews, it will give that 
epistle a harmony and consistency, which you may 
not now, perhaps, be able to trace in it ; and you will 
regard it as the very best form, in which Jewish 
prejudices could have been overcome, and the chris- 
tian faith of one born a Jew could have been con- 
ciliated or confirmed. This view of the epistle will 
account for much of the phraseology commonly 
quoted in the discussion of the atonement, and may 
prepare us for the consideration of particular texts 
upon this subject, to which I shall invite you in the 
next lecture. 

My hour is fully spent; and I have spent it in 
negations, which I dislike to do, when it can be 
avoided. But, on account of the tenacity with 



THE ATONEMENT. 195 

which many cling to the view, against which I have 
been contending, I have deemed it necessary to 
give it as thorough a discussion as possible, before 
presenting that view of the atonement, which seems 
to me both rational, scriptural, and full of instruction 
and edification. None can attach a higher efficacy 
than I would, to the cross and death of Christ ; but I 
believe, (as I shall attempt to show you in the next 
lecture,) that it is, in the language of our text, ' God 
in Christ reconciling the world unto himself,' and not 
Christ reconciling God to man. As a sacrifice of love, 
in which God and Christ consent, may the Savior's 
atoning blood be applied to our hearts and con- 
sciences, so that ' we, having received the atonement, 
may joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ/ 



LECTURE VIII. 



THE ATONEMENT. 



1 PETER III. 18. 

CHRIST ALSO HATH ONCE SUFFERED FOR SINS, THE 

JUST FOR THE UNJUST, THAT HE MIGHT 

BRING US TO GOD. 

In my former lecture on the atonement, I confined 
myself chiefly to the obvious considerations opposed 
to the doctrine of our Savior's vicarious or substituted 
suffering. I shewed you that this doctrine has no 
place in the recorded teachings of our Savior, of his 
apostles, or of the early christian fathers; that the 
forgiveness of the penitent was always a part of God's 
law ; that the forgiveness of the penitent is not only 
consistent with perfect justice, but an essential part 
of justice ; that Christ's vicarious sufferings destroy the 
doctrine of pardon, inasmuch as there can be no par- 
don, where the full penalty is paid ; and that, so far 
from being an encouragement to sin, the free forgive- 
ness of the penitent, and of those only, is the surest 
inducement to goodness. I then spoke of the absurd- 



THE ATONEMENT. 197 

ity of maintaining, as our Trinitarian brethren do, that 
God can punish God, or can be punished by God. I 
then shewed you, that there are no traces, in the gos- 
pel history, of the infinite weight of agony said to have 
been laid upon our Savior. I next exhibited the in- 
consistency of the vicarious atonement with some of 
our Savior's principal statements of religious doctrine, 
— then too, with the immutability of the divine attri- 
butes. I then took up the frequent comparison of 
our Savior to the Jewish sacrifices, on which rests per- 
haps the most frequently urged argument in favor of 
the vicariousness of his death. I shewed you that the 
Jewish sacrifices were not vicarious ; that Christ is 
more frequently compared to the paschal lamb, which 
was not even a sin-offering, than to any other part of 
the Jewish ritual ; that comparisons with reference to 
his death are drawn indifferently from every portion 
of the Jewish ritual, which comparisons, if they des* 
ignate doctrinal truths, are inconsistent with each other, 
and can be harmonized only by supposing them mere 
figures ; and that the word sacrifice, with its correspond- 
ing phraseology, is employed with reference to a large 
variety of subjects and persons, other than Christ 
and his death. I now resume the subject; and may 
tax your patience for an unusual length of time, as I 
am solicitous to complete my discussion of the 
atonement this evening. 
17* 



198 THE ATONEMENT. 

The advocates of the doctrine of vicarious suffer- 
ing allege in its favor certain proof-texts, the principal 
of which we will now pass in cursory review. Many 
of these texts are, to my mind, entirely opposed to 
the doctrine, in behalf of which they are quoted ; for 
they refer to Christ and his death, not as removing 
the punishment of sin, but as taking away sin itself, — 
an efficacy, which no christian denies. Such are 
these texts : ' Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
aivay the sin of the world.' # ' The blood of Jesus 
Christ his Son cleanseth its from all sin! t ' How 
much more shall the blood of Christ, who through 
the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to 
God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve 
the living God?'-t These passages cannot imply 
vicarious punishment; for that does not take away 
sin, or have any effect upon the sinner, — it simply 
takes away the wrath of God and the penalty of his 
law. The taking away of sin is a work, which can 
be wrought only upon the individual's own soul and 
character, and with which a vicarious atonement has 
no possible connection. In point of fact, there is not 
a single text in the Bible, in which Christ is said to 
have taken away the punishment of men's sins, or to 
have appeased God's wrath, or to have made him 
propitious. 

* John i. 29. f 1 John i. 7. % Hebrews ix. 14. 



THE ATONEMENT. 199 

I omit now the consideration of those texts, where 
Christ is merely spoken of as a sacrifice; for they 
were sufficiently discussed in the last lecture. I pass 
to the class of texts, in which Christ is said to bear 
men's sins. * Who lxis own self bare our sins in his 
own body on the tree.' # In like manner, Isaiah says, 
' Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our 
sorrows ; ' and, ' The Lord hath laid on him, (to be thus 
borne,) the iniquity of us all.'f We fortunately have 
in St. Matthew's gospel an authoritative interpreta- 
tion of this phraseology. It is in the following 
passage : ' He cast out the spirits with Ins word, and 
healed all that were sick ; that it might be fulfilled 
which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 
Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses! X 
He bore them by bearing them off, by taking them 
away ; for no one of course supposes that he assumed 
the sicknesses, which he cured. In fact, in each of 
the original languages of the scriptures, the word, 
which means to lift or bear, means also, and perhaps 
full as frequently, to take off, or to carry away. 

Another class of texts is of those, in which the 
word ransom is employed. Our Savior, as reported 
by Matthew and Mark, says : ' Whosoever will be 
chief among you, let him be your minister : even as 
the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but 

* 1 Peter ii. 24. f Isaiah liii. 4, 6. \ Matthew viii. 16, 17. 



200 THE ATONEMENT. 

to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.' * 
St. Paul also says of Christ, that he ' gave himself a 
ransom for all.' f These are the only instances, in 
which the word occurs with reference to Christ. Now 
the word rendered ransom undoubtedly means, in its 
literal sense, money paid to the captor for the redemption 
of a captive. It it contended that the word is used 
literally in the passage just quoted ? Let those, who 
think so, tell us then, who was the captor of men's 
souls, and when and how any sum of money was 
paid to that captor. Do they say that there was no 
captor, and that no money was paid? Then they 
must acknowledge, that the word is figuratively em- 
ployed with reference to our Savior. But, if it be 
figuratively employed, we must look for its interpreta- 
tion to its figurative use in the Bible on other sub- 
jects. Now the corresponding word, (both the noun 
and the verb,) is often used in the Old Testament 
with reference to the Israelites, in such a way that it 
can only denote the means or the act of deliverance. 
Thus, in Isaiah, God says to his covenant people, ' I 
gave Egypt for thy ransom' X by 'which we cannot 
understand the price paid to those, who held the Isra- 
elites in captivity; for Egypt was the very power 
that kept Israel captive, and Egypt could not have 
been given to Egypt, but, on the other hand, was 

* Matthew xx. 27, 28. Mark x. 44, 45. 
f 1 Timothy ii. 6. % Isaiah xliii. 3. 



THE ATONEMENT. 201 

utterly subdued and spoiled. The sense obviously 
is : 'I gave up Eg}^pt to defeat and humiliation for 
thy deliverance! In like manner says Jeremiah: 
' The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him 
from the hand of him that was stronger than he/ * 
that is, not paid a price for him, but manifestly, deliv- 
ered him. With reference to the Babylonish captivity, 
the Israelites are called the ransomed, and the ran- 
somed of the Lord, by which is evidently meant, not 
redeemed by the payment of a price, but simply deliv- 
ered. Deliverance then, is the idea attached to the 
word ransom, when figuratively employed in the 
Bible ; and, as it cannot be literally used with regard 
to our Savior, I have not the slightest doubt, that the 
word means, as used with reference to his mediation, 
deliverance from darkness, error, and sin. 

I would next refer to the texts, in which christians 
are said to be bought with a price. There are two of 
these texts. The death of Christ is not spoken of 
in connection with either of them; and they both 
stand in such a connection, as to show that it is not 
the impunity, -but the allegiance, the service of 
christians, that is purchased. In one of them, the 
language is : ' He that is called, being free, is Christ's 
servant. Ye are bought with a price ; be not ye the 
servants of men,' t that is, by what Christ has done 

* Jeremiah xxxi. 11. f 1 Corinthians vii. 22, 23. 



202 THE ATONEMENT. 

and suffered in your behalf, he has purchased your 
service, — has laid upon you an imperative obligation 
to be the servants of no other master. The other 
text, in which this phrase occurs, relates to the duty 
of self- consecration to God's service. ' Know ye not 
that your body is the temple of the holy spirit which 
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your 
own ? For ye are bought with a price ; therefore 
glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which 
are God's.' # The obvious sense of this passage is, 
' God, by the spiritual aid and grace, which he has 
bestowed upon you, has bought your allegiance, — 
has established an indefeasible claim to your service, 
— has made it your obvious and imperative duty to 
live, not as your own, but as his, as his in body, soul, 
and life.' 

I next ask your attention to the texts, in which. 
Christ is spoken of as a propitiation. They are 
three. One is in the epistle to the Romans. ' Whom 
God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith 
in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the re- 
mission of sins that are past, through the forbearance 
of God ; to declare, I say, at tins time his righteous- 
ness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him 
which believeth in Jesus.'t This text, as a whole, 
is certainly opposed to the idea of vicarious surTer- 

* 1 Corinthians vi. 19, 20. f Romans in. 25, 26. 



THE ATONEMENT. 203 

ing as the ground of pardon ; for ■ the remission of 
sins that are past ' is expressly said to be, not through 
the sufferings of Christ, but { through the forbearance 
of God,' and Jesus is said to be ' set forth' or mani- 
fested, not to make God merciful, but ' to declare ' or 
exhibit ' his righteousness.' The word rendered pro- 
pitiation, means mercy-seat. So say nearly all critics 
and commentators of any authority or value. This 
is one of the instances, in winch our Savior, by one 
who was born and educated a Hebrew of the 
Hebrews, is compared to a prominent portion of the 
religious apparatus of the Jews. The mercy-seat 
was the lid of the ark of the covenant. It was 
within the holy of holies. Above it were the 
cherubim. Upon it, and between their wings, rested, 
in the day of miracles, the luminous cloud, betoken- 
ing the divine presence. On it was laid neither 
sacrifice nor offering. But, once a year, the high 
priest alone entered the holy of holies, sprinkled the 
blood of victims upon the mercy-seat, offered suppli- 
cation for the divine forgiveness of the sins of the 
whole people, and came forth to declare to the 
assembled nation God's pardon to the penitent. 
How appropriately then is Jesus termed the mercy- 
seat, both as the fullest possible manifestation of the 
divine attributes, and as the messenger and pledge of 
the divine forgiveness ! But the appropriateness of 



204 THE ATONEMENT. 

the comparison ceases, if you connect with it the 
idea of vicarious punishment. The true meaning of 
the rich and beautiful passage now under considera- 
tion may, perhaps, be discerned from the following 
paraphrase.' Whom God has set forth as a mercy-seat 
through faith, [that is, a spiritual mercy-seat,] sprinkled, 
not with the blood of victims, but with his own blood, 
to exhibit or manifest in his own example the right- 
eousness which he [God] requires, (for such was the 
forbearance of God, that, instead of visiting men's sins 
with desolating judgments, he sent his Son to take 
away sin,) to manifest in our own times the righteous- 
ness that God requires, that God might be just, might 
still adhere to that law, by which only the penitent 
are pardoned, and yet, that, through the beauty of 
Christ's example and the reconciling power of his 
cross, many might be led to repentance and a holy 
life, and might thus be accounted as righteous in 
his sight.' 

The other two passages, in which the word pro- 
pitiation is used, are these : ' If any man sin, we 
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the 
righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins; and 
not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole 
world.' # ' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but 
that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitia- 

* 1 John ii. 1, 2. 



THE ATONEMENT. 205 

tion for our sins.'* In these texts the Greek word 
is not the same, as that used in the text last under 
discussion ; but it is a veiy similar word, derived from 
the same verb. It is the word employed in the 
Septuagint to designate the sin-offerings under the 
Jewish ritual ; and this I suppose to be its meaning 
as used by St. John. These texts then are instances 
of yet another of the comparisons, so numerous in 
the New Testament, of Jesus and his death to 
features and portions of the religious ceremonial of 
the Jews. In my last lecture, I showed you that the 
Jewish sacrifices were not vicarious ; and, this being 
the case, the comparison of our Savior to one of 
those sacrifices can be of no weight as an argument 
for the vicariousness of his atonement 

There are two or three single texts, which now 
demand our notice. One, which claims a passing 
comment on account of the frequency with which it 
is quoted, though it has no connection with the 
subject, is this : ' Without shedding of blood is no 
remission,'! — not, of sins, as it is usually quoted; for 
the sentence relates to the furniture of the taber- 
nacle, which was of course incapable of sin. The 
word rendered remission, means letting go. The 
whole passage is : ' He, [Moses,] sprinkled likewise 
with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of 

* 1 John iv. 10. t Hebrews ix. 22. 

18 



206 THE ATONEMENT. 

the ministry. And almost all things are by the law 
purged with blood ; and without shedding of blood is 
no remission' that is, nothing is let go, is left, without 
being sprinkled with blood, — the simple statement 
of a well known fact in the Jewish economy, which 
an ignorant #r careless person may indeed cite as 
referring to the death of Christ, but which I see not 
how a biblical scholar or a theologian could honestly 
quote as teaching one thing or another with regard 
to it. 

Another passage is : ' He hath made him to be sin 
for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in him.' # I know of no com- 
mentator, who does not make sin here to denote a 
sin-offering. Among those, who give this exposition, 
I would mention Doddridge, McKnight, and Scott, all 
names of approved orthodoxy. Says McKnight on 
this verse, and with perfect truth, ' There are many 
passages in the Old Testament where sin signifies a 
sin-offering. Tims, Hosea iv. 8. Tliey (the priests) 
eat up the sin (that is, the sin-offerings) of my people. 
In the New Testament, likewise, the word sin hath 
the same signification, Hebrews ix. 26, 28, xiii. 11.' 
The apostle's assertion then is, ' God has made him, 
who was sinless, to be a sin-offering for us, that we 

* 2 Corinthians v. 27. 



THE ATONEMENT. 207 

through him might be made righteous or holy.' Now, 
unless it can be proved that the sin-offerings under 
the Jewish dispensation were vicarious, the compari- 
son of Christ to these sacrifices cannot indicate the 
vicariousness of his sufferings. 

Another text, on which some reliance is placed, is 
this : ' Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of 
the law, being made a curse for us ; for it is written, 
cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' # The 
phrase, being made a curse for us, many regard as 
denoting, becoming accursed of God for our sakes, that 
is, bearing his wrath and indignation due to the 
guilt of man. But, on this point, I will-quote a part 
of Mc Knight's note on the passage, simply saying 
that I accord entirely with his view. 'Christ's dying 
on the cross is called his becoming a curse, that is, an 
accursed person, a person ignominiously punished as 
a malefactor ; not because he was really a malefactor, 
and the object of God's displeasure, but because he 
was punished in the manner, in which accursed per- 
sons, or malefactors, are punished. He was not a 
transgressor, but he was numbered with the transgres- 
sors That this is the true import of the 

phrase having become a curse, is evident from the 
passage in the law, by which the apostle proves his 

* Galations iii. 13. 



208 THE ATONEMENT. 

assertion : It is written, accursed is every one who is 
hanged on a tree' 

In addition to these passages, there are several in 
the New Testament, in which Christ is said to have 
suffered or died for us, or for our sins, — reiterations in 
fact of the prophet's words : ' He was wounded for 
our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities ; 
the chastisement of our peace, (that is, the chastise- 
ment, through which our peace came,) was upon him ; 
and with his stiipes we are healed.' # These texts 
express, without ambiguity to my own mind, the great 
fundamental truth with regard to Christ's death, in 
which all christians are agreed, namely, that he died 
for us, died in our behalf, and that his death is the 
means of our peace and happiness, both here and 
hereafter. They present no difficulty, they demand 
no forced interpretation, to make them consistent with 
the simplicity of our faith. Nay, it is only by a 
forced interpretation, that they are made to denote 
Christ's vicarious punishment. When you say that 
a patriot died for his country, that a self-devoted 
citizen suffered for the liberty or peace of his fellow- 
citizens, or that a missionary offered himself to 
privation, suffering, or death, for the ignorance or 
guilt of benighted pagans, you do not mean that 

* Isaiah liii. 5. 



THE ATONEMENT. 209 

one individual suffered or died in the stead of others ; 
but simply that he suffered in their behalf", and in- 
curred death in his disinterested exertions for their 
good. Now why should we interpret the language of 
the Bible on different principles from those, on which 
we interpret other language ? But all these compli- 
cated doctrines are founded on a broad departure 
from the common laws of interpretation, and on a 
stubborn determination to make words and phrases 
between the covers of the Bible mean something 
widely different from what they would mean in any 
other book. The phrases, which denote one's dying 
for another, when they occur elsewhere and on other 
subjects, are never deemed mystical. Why should 
any mystery hang over them, as we read them in the 
Bible ? 

I believe that I have now referred to the principal 
texts, or classes of texts, usually quoted by those, 
who believe that Christ was punished in our stead. 
I have not knowingly omitted any, which seemed to 
demand notice. In closing my remarks upon the 
doctrine of vicarious atonement, I would observe that 
the doctrine, if true, is not one, which there is any 
need of our knowing, or which can exert any practi- 
cal influence upon our hearts or lives. If it be true, 
it is impossible, (as I showed you in the last lecture,) 
for us, in the present state of our faculties, to recon- 
18* 



210 THE ATONEMENT. 

cile it with the justice of God; and the belief of it 
would therefore stand in the way of right feelings 
with reference to his character. And, if it be true, 
it simply indicates an effect, that was produced, two 
thousand years ago, on the divine mind, — a change, 
that was then wrought in the divine character. It 
teaches nothing with regard to our hearts or charac- 
ters. It indicates no change to be wrought in us. 
A blood, shed to make God propitious, cannot be 
sprinkled upon our hearts and consciences. We can- 
not be conscious of a penalty paid, or a punishment 
inflicted in our behalf, ages before we were born. It 
can then make no essential difference, whether we 
believe this doctrine or not. The work, if wrought, 
may have been wrought for the benefit of us, who 
can trace no authentic records of it, no less than for 
that of the patriarchs and prophets of the infant 
world, who died before it was wrought. We may 
safely remain ignorant of what cannot possibly affect 
our hearts or lives. It can be of vital consequence 
for us to know those things only, by knowing which 
we may be led to do what we should otherwise leave 
undone, or to omit what we should otherwise do. 
Tried by this test, Christ's punishment in our stead, 
whether true or false, cannot claim the place usually 
assigned to it, among essential, fundamental doc- 
trines. The denial of it, if it do not, (as I believe 



THE ATONEMENT. 211 

that it does,) enhance the obligation to gratitude, 
penitence, and holiness, at least leaves the obligation 
to those duties unimpaired. 

I now proceed to give a brief exposition of my 
own views of the atonement. The three great points, 
which seem to me to characterize the scriptural doc- 
trine of the atonement, are, first, that God is the 
author ; secondly, that man is the object; and, thirdly, 
that holiness is the end of the atonement. These three 
ideas are found combined in very many of the 
instances, in which the mission, mediation, and death 
of Christ are spoken of in the New Testament I 
will read two or three passages of this nature, as 
specimens of scores that I might quote. 

' God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto him- 
self.'' * God, the author; the world, the object ; recon- 
ciliation to himself, that is, holiness, the end. 

God hath made him to be sin for us, who knew 
no sin, that ice might be made the righteousness of God 
in him.' t God, the author \ for us, the object; that 
we might be made the righteousness of God, the end. 

"Where God is not mentioned in the very sentence, 
in which our Savior's mission, mediation, or death, is 
spoken of, still the end, the production of holiness in 
man, is in hardly a single instance omitted. How 
clearly is this end, in contradistinction to any purpose 

*2 Corinthians v. 19. f 2 Corinthians v. 21. 



212 THE ATONEMENT. 

with reference to the disposition or character of God, 
expressed in the following passages ! ' Christ hath 
also once suffered for sin, the jnst for the unjust, that 
he might bring us to God! * ' Our Savior Jesus Christ, 
who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from 
all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar p>eople, 
zealous of good ivorks ' | ' Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners? % * Who his own self bare our 
sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead 
to sin, should live unto righteousness, ! $ 

The leading idea of the scriptural doctrine of the 
atonement then is, that Christ died to make men 
holy, to reconcile them- to God, to lead them to his 
love and service, to make them ' followers of God as 
dear children,' in fine, that Christ died, to work, not 
upon God, but upon man, and for him to perform, not 
an outward, but an inward service, — a service, the 
efficacy of which is upon the human heart and 
character. 

I am well aware that many represent this as an 
inferior work, as a work, which needed not for its 
discharge a personage so eminent and heavenly, and 
which can hardly have authorized the strong language 
used in the Bible with regard to Christ's death, or the 
exalted titles and homage ascribed to Jesus on earth 



* 1 Peter iii. IS. f 1 Timothy i. 15. 

f Titus ii. 10, 11. § 1 Peter ii. 21. 



THE ATONEMENT. 213 

and in heaven. Had I not often heard this objection, 
I should think it no compliment to your spiritual 
discernment to take notice of it ; for I feel sure that 
I have your entire sympathy, when I say that the 
greatest service, which God himself can render to 
man, is to make him holy, perfect, godlike, to redeem 
him from the power of sin, and to shed the consecra- 
tion of a devout and dutiful spirit over his whole 
soul and his whole life. And if Christ has performed 
this service for man, then has he performed for him 
the most momentous and godlike service possible, — 
a service, for which he cannot but have a name 
above every other name, and for which the eternal 
ascription of gratitude and praise must echo through 
the ranks of the redeemed. Leave this service un- 
performed, leave me in unrepented sin, with my 
grovelling aims and unconsecrated life, and it is a 
small service, that a price is paid, or a penalty borne 
in my stead, ■« — I carry my hell about with me, a hell, 
which would shed its blackness over my spirit, were 
I in paradise. But save me from my sins, purge my 
conscience, sanctify my soul, reform and consecrate 
my life, in hell itself I should be proof against its 
torments, — I cannot but be happy, — ■ my heaven is 
within, and cannot be taken from me. The idea, that 
to elevate and sanctify the inner man is a subordinate 
work, proceeds from the unspiritual, grovelling ways 



214 THE ATONEMENT. 

of thinking, that have been but too characteristic of 
our race taken collectively. Men most admire what 
comes with observation, what is external and formal. 
They appreciate not what is wrought in the hidden 
man of the heart, and ripens for eternity. On this 
ground, the conqueror has always seemed a greater 
man than the philanthropist, and the founder of a 
hospital, than he, who heals the diseases of the soul" 
On precisely the same principle is it, that men have 
assigned a higher dignity and worth to an atonement, 
which should wipe away all punishment at a single 
stroke, than to an atonement, which must be wrought 
over afresh in each individual heart, creating it anew 
in the beauty of holiness and in the fulness of the 
divine image. To my own mind, this latter office 
with regard to the individual soul is the highest office, 
which I can imagine as belonging to the Savior ; and 
to say that the blood of Christ has cleansed a single 
soul from sin, and has wholly sanctified that soul, is 
to ascribe more to it, than were we to say that it has 
removed the mere penalty of violated law from a 
whole universe of sinners. 

But some one may say : ' If Christ does no more 
than to cleanse the soul from sin, and to renew it in 
the divine image, my hope of pardon for my past sins 
is gone.' It is gone, I reply, if you will persist in 
looking upon God as essentially vindictive and unfor- 



THE ATONEMENT. 215 

giving; but not, if you will only take God's testimony 
concerning his own character, uttered many ages 
before Christ died, when he revealed himself to 
Moses, ' The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and 
gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness 
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving 
iniquity, and transgression, and sin.' I believe that 
God was never otherwise than he then declared him- 
self. I build, no more than those, who hold an 
opposite doctrine, on my own merits. I depend for 
forgiveness on the eternal mercy of God, made known 
to the fathers, made manifest and incarnate in Christ 
Let none call this a sandy foundation. If God's 
mercy be not a sufficient basis for our trust, I know 
not what can suffice. It is a foundation broader than 
the universe, — immovable, though heaven and earth 
pass away. It belts creation with a zone of love. It 
upholds all worlds and beings. It is boundless and 
infinite. The need, so often expressed, of Christ's 
vicarious punishment, is a need, which the doctrine 
itself creates. I should feel it, if I believed that God 
was ever unwilling or unable to forgive. I should feel 
it, if I believed, in Dr. Watts' s language, that God's 
throne ' once was a seat of dreadful wrath,' and that 

{ Vengeance was his name.' 

But let it not be supposed that I do not connect 

Christ, his sufferings, and his death, most intimately 



216 THE ATONEMENT. 

with the forgiveness of sins. My hope of pardon is 
in God through Christ. The doctrine of pardon, even 
if revealed before Christ, was not so brought to light 
and made manifest, that it could be the object of a 
sustaining and satisfying faith. On the question, 
whether God will forgive sin, the analogies of nature 
shed no light; for her subtle powers and majestic 
agencies have never sinned, but are all obedient 
Those, therefore, who have been left to the light of 
nature, have never found peace under the burden of 
transgression; but have gone the whole round of 
fasts, penances, pilgrimages, and self-tortures, without 
obtaining through any or all of these means the 
assurance of forgiveness. Nor did the fainter and 
often mysterious light of God's earlier revelations 
communicate this assurance in its fulness. To the 
heart that knows itself, and feels its unwortlnness 
and sinfulness, the most vital of all questions is, Can 
I be forgiven? And to this question, no sufficient 
and satisfying answer has been afforded, except in the 
loving and paternal attributes of the Almighty, as 
made manifest in the person, the ministry, the cross 
of Christ. But, when we look to Jesus as the image 
of God, we behold in him a love full and free, ready 
to forgive, waiting to be gracious. We feel that 
there is no limit to the mercy, which, amidst the 
agonies of death, could make intercession for the 



THE ATONEMENT. 217 

transgressors ; and we can thus look for pardon with 
implicit confidence to that mercy on the throne of the 
universe, which he, who on the cross prayed for his 
murderers, came to declare and manifest. It is then 
to God, as revealed and beheld in Christ, that we 
look for pardon. But we regard the promise and 
pledge of pardon, as but the meaiis and motive to per- 
sonal holiness. Jesus says to us, ' Your sins be for- 
given,' only that he may add, with an emphasis, which 
pardoning mercy alone could send home to the soul 
of the penitent, 'Go, and sin no more.' God permits 
us to behold his forgiving love in Christ, that through 
the energy of this love our souls may be transformed, 
renewed, and sanctified. 

But, in behalf of a vicarious atonement, I have 
sometimes heard an appeal made to personal ex- 
perience. Let us then analyze experience, and see 
how far it can go. There are many here, I trust, who 
have personally ' received the atonement,' who cher- 
ish the faith and hope, and lead the life of the 
christian, who feel the peace of God in their hearts, 
and breathe his spirit in their daily conversation. 
Were I addressing myself to an individual of this 
class, I should appeal to his own consciousness, and 
say, What, my friend, are you conscious that Christ 
has done for you ? That he has paid any price for 
you ? That he has incurred any penalty due to you ? 
19 



218 THfi ATONEMENT. 

No. Of this, even if it be the case, you cannot be 
conscious. Of what then are you conscious ? That 
Christ has made the name of God a dear and 
cherished name to your heart; that he has brought 
you near to him, as a child to a Father ; that he has 
taught you to pray ; that he has made you love virtue ; 
that he has led you, drawn you on, in the path of 
duty ; that his cross and death have appealed to your 
best affections, have rebuked your selfishness and 
worldliness, have made you feel the beauty of 
holiness, have been to your soul a touching manifes- 
tation of divine love, have laid you under a pleasing 
constraint to live, not for yourself, but for him that 
died for you. You have looked upon the cross, and 
said, ' Herein is love ; ' and that love has made 
the yoke of obedience easy, and the burden of duty 
light, has called out your own love, has made you 
heartily penitent for sin, and earnestly desirous to live 
as the cross bids you live, and to be a follower of the 
Lamb whithersoever he goeth. This is the sum of 
the christian's religious experience, — this, the atone- 
ment wrought in the true disciple's heart, — this, the 
work, which takes precedence of all others, in its 
dignity, its worth, and its fruits. 

Let us now pause for a moment, and consider how 
much is implied in that one word, atonement, — recon* 
ciliation. Here is a human being * either sunk in 



THE ATONEMENT. 219 

gross depravity, or immersed in the heartless pursuit 
of gain or pleasure. He is alienated from God, ren- 
ders him no thanks, offers him no prayers, and lives 
as he might live, were he self-created and in a world 
of his own. His sympathies, either are shut up with- 
in his own bosom, or flow within the narrow channel 
of home and kindred ; and, even for those whom he 
loves, he seeks not the best gifts, loves not their 
souls, — his love may be false, fatal to their highest 
interests, — he may wreathe around them Ins own 
chains of worldliness or guilt, — his example and 
influence may be pestilential to all within his reach. 
For that man atonement is to be made. He is to be 
brought to God. Those stains upon his spirit and his 
life are to fade away before the light of God's counte- 
nance. That soul must look on Jesus, till Ins divine 
features stamp themselves upon it. That heart, so 
cold, or so filled with lower loves, must be wholly rilled 
with the love of God. That life, so selfish, must 
breathe a diffusive, all-embracing charity. That ex- 
ample, that influence, now neutral, if not baneful, 
must bless all on whom it shines, and lead neighbors, 
friends, strangers, to give glory to God for its beautiful 
light. The whole character must reflect the divine 
image. There must be a reconciliation of will and 
purpose, a blending of the man's will with his God's, a 
oneness of aim and effort, a frame of soul and of life, 



220 THE ATONEMENT. 

of which the man may say with truth, ' God dwells in 
me, and I in him. 1 Not until all this is the case, 
not until the Father's love throbs in every pulsation 
of the child's heart, and the Father's will rules in 
every action of the child's life, is the atonement, the 
at-one-ment, fully made. 

It is this high and glorious work, which Jesus per- 
forms, when he brings us to the Father, when he 
reconciles us unto God. This is the atonement, of 
which God is the author, Christ the agent, man the 
object. To effect this was the whole work of Christ's 
ministry, miracles, teachings, life, death, resurrection, 
and intercession. But, in this work, the New Testa- 
ment assigns the most prominent place to the death 
of Christ ; and eveiy christian heart assigns to it the 
same place. He is no christian, to whom the cross is 
not dear, and who has not felt the need and worth of 
a suffering Redeemer. The blood of Calvary has 
been the life-blood of the church. 

For, in the first place, it is by love, that man, when 
alienated from God, is softened, humbled, and made 
penitent. He could resist threats. He coul d steel 
his heart against the denunciations of vengeance. 
In the fearful might of a rebellious spirit, he could dare 
a frowning heaven and a vindictive Deity. But love 
has a voice, to which none can listen unmoved, es- 
pecially when it makes itself heard from amidst tor- 



THE ATONEMENT. 221 

ture and mortal agony, incurred in behalf of those 
with whom it pleads. How does the thought of one, 
"who suffered and died for every man, rouse the last 
faint spark of virtuous feeling and of moral strength, 
and fan it into a generous flame ! How does it bring 
near, those who were afar off, make them ashamed 
of their wanderings, and excite the earnest longing, 
that for themselves such love may not have been in 
vain ! ' Greater love hath no man than this, that 
a man lay down his life for his friends.' Jesus might 
have dwelt on earth in glorious majesty, and passed 
to heaven from an unsuflering ministry, and yet have 
loved man no less ; but man would not have dis- 
cerned the depth, or felt the power of his love, had 
he not gone as a lamb to the slaughter, and freely 
given himself up for us all. 

But was it his own love only, that Jesus mani- 
fested on the cross ? No ; but also the love of One 
greater than he. For he came from the bosom of 
the Father ; and he represented his own mission and 
death as the fruit, the expression, the pledge of 
the Father's love. 'God so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son.' In him was mani- 
fested the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; and, in the 
depth of his compassion and the perfectness of his 
love, he was exhibiting the intensity of God's pity 
and the fervor of his affection for his human family. 
19* 



222 THE ATONEMENT. 

By carrying his love to the last point of endurance 
and of sacrifice, he exhibited the boundlessness of 
that mercy, which is the sinner's hope, — he made 
the promise of pardon full, free, all-embracing, — 
lie bore the image of a Father always ready to for- 
give, always waiting to be gracious. ' Scarcely for 
a righteous man will one die ; yet peradventure for 
a good man some would even dare to die. But God 
commendeth his love toward us, in that while we 
were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' When we 
look at the cross, we are constrained to ask, with St. 
Paul, ' He that spared not his own Son, but delivered 
him up for us all, how shall he not with him also 
freely give us all things ? ' When we view God in 
Christ, as Christ seals his mission with his blood, we 
can exclaim, with the same apostle, ' I am persuaded 
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principali- 
ties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.' It is in the love 
and the cross of Christ, that the Father goes forth to 
meet the wandering child. It is in Christ crucified, 
that he reveals the fulness of paternal love ; and 
thus, from the first moment, gives the penitent broad, 
firm ground for encouragement and hope, without 
which he would have neither confidence nor strength 



THE ATONEMENT. 223 

to retrace his evil ways, and to return to the path of 
God's commandments. 

Then too, it behoved Christ, as our guide and 
example in duty, as the icay and the life, to be made 
perfect through suffering. His godlike purity and vir- 
tue might have been no less perfect and entire in a 
manifestation, without suffering, and full of outward 
glory. But the beauty of the picture would have 
been marred by the gold and tinsel of its setting. It 
shows itself most perfect and divine, when encom- 
passed by no outward form or comeliness, wrapped in 
the weeds of sorrow, and shining forth from the 
shadow of death. His submission, his tenderness, 
his forgiveness, his philanthropy, his piety, could have 
had, in no other form, their full manifestation. His 
example could have been, under no other circum- 
stances, so radiant with spiritual beauty, so attractive, 
so inviting. It is at the cross, that we learn the full 
preciousness and loveliness of Christ's character, and 
feel ourselves the most loudly called, the most tenderly 
entreated to become his followers. 

Then also Christ's sufferings and death bring his 
example home to those scenes of trial, conflict, sor- 
row, and agony, in which we are the most strongly 
tempted to forsake the service of God, and in which, 
therefore, we stand in the most urgent need of divine 
help and strength. "We behold in him a full and 



224 THE ATONEMENT. 

perfect victory over every enemy to our peace and 
progress. We see the sting of sorrow destroyed, the 
power of death subdued. We behold him triumph- 
ant over grief, and agony, and the bitterness of the 
grave ; and trace, through the shadow of his tomb, a 
path of living light that leads to heaven. We hear 
from his cross the voice, ' Be thou faithful unto death, 
and I will give thee a crown of life ;' — ' To him that 
overcome th will I grant to sit with me in my throne, 
even as I also overcame, and am set down with my 
Father in his throne.' 

In all these points of view, was Christ's death an 
essential part of that plan of redemption, by which 
man is saved from sin, and made one with God. 
Without his death, his own love would not have 
been fully shown, and might have pleaded in vain. 
Without his death, God's love in him would not have 
had its utmost manifestation ; God's promise of par- 
don through him would have lacked its seal ; God's 
invitation, his offered mercy to the returning sinner, 
would not have had full emphasis of utterance. 
Without his death, his example would have wanted 
its most godlike aspects. Without his death, his 
example would not have applied itself to those scenes 
and seasons of life, in which we are the most liable 
to faint or to wander, and the most in need of divine 
light and guidance. His death, then, was essential to 



THE ATONEMENT. 225 

the full power of the gospel, and thus to the restora- 
tion and sanctification of the human soul. 

Yet, because I deem Christ's death thus essential, 
I do not undervalue his life, his teachings, his resur- 
rection, or his intercession. They all combine to 
constitute the vast and beautiful system of means, by 
which God reconciles man to himself, and through 
which man receives the atonement. 

If these things be so, brethren, the atonement is a 
work wrought, not for us, but within us. It is Christ's 
work of grace in our souls. When we feel in our 
inmost hearts, and show forth in our daily walk and 
conversation, the power of his death, the power of 
his spirit, "when the cross is reerected in our souls, 
and our sins are nailed to it, when his last prayer, 
' Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,' is the 
prayer of our whole lives, then, and not till then, 
have we received the atonement. Let our discussion 
awaken us all to self-examination as to our part in 
this work of grace, in this inward salvation. And let 
us account ' Christ formed within ' as our only hope 
of glory ; and deem ourselves his, only so far, as we 
bear the image of his purity, submission, obedience, 
love, and piety. 

I have now, my friends, in a series of eight lectures, 
reviewed with you some of the heads of christian doc- 
trine, on which I dissent from the established creeds of 



226 THE ATONEMENT. 

those portions of the church, with which, next to our 
own, we are the most conversant. In my first 
lecture, I labored to establish the divine wiity. In 
my second,. I discussed the question of our Savior's 
supreme divinity. In my third, I endeavored to ex- 
hibit a comprehensive view of the teaching of scrip- 
ture with regard to Christ s true rank and dignity. My 
fourth was upon the nature and agency of the holy 
spirit. My fifth was on human nature ; my sixth on 
regeneration; my seventh and eighth have been on the 
atonement. There are other points of christian doc* 
trine, which I wish to present in similar systematic 
and argumentative discourses ; and, particularly, I 
hope, at some future time, should my life be spared, 
to present to you, in a course of sermons, the positive 
side of our views of christian truth, without reference 
to points in controversy. But other engagements 
dispose me now to close the present course, especially 
as I have embraced in it a group of subjects, which 
naturally belong together, and so connect themselves 
with each other, as to give to the course a certain 
unity and wholeness. 

In conclusion, let me urge you, on all these subjects, 
to search the scriptures for yourselves, diligently and 
prayerfully, and not to accept my results, without 
making them your own, by the careful use of the 
reason with which God has endowed you, and the 



THE ATONEMENT. 227 

light which he has given you. And may he, the 
spirit of truth, guide you into all truth, and make you 
faithful in the way of his commandments, even in 
that path, winch grows brighter and brighter unto the 
perfect day. 



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c This volume is eminently a work of compassion, it is medicine, 
food, and air for the afflicted lonely ones. That medicine is com- 
pounded of ingredients gathered in the garden of the Lord ; that food 
is the bread which came down from heaven : that air is the zephyry 
odor, which comes from the paradise of God. Let the mentally 
debilitated take, eat, breathe, and revive.' — London Chistian Pioneer. 



8 JAMES MTJNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

An Offering of Sympathy to the Afflicted: Es- 
pecially to Parents bereaved of their Children. Being 
a collection from Manuscripts never before published. 
With an Appendix of Extracts. By Francis Parkman. 
Third Edition. 18mo. 

' Though small, it is rich in comfort and instruction. Prepared by 
the editor in a season of peculiar personal affliction, it contains many 
of his own thoughts, with the judicious selections which he made 
from books from which he drew consolation, besides the original 
articles which at his request were furnished by his brethren in the 
ministry. In the present edition not only is the Appendix — of Ex- 
tracts — enlarged, but an original article is given not found in the 
former editions.' — Monthly Miscellany. 

' We are not surprised that Dr. Parkman's excellent little volume 
has reached a third edition. It has carried comfort to many a heart. 
We wish it well on its errand of peace.' — Christian Examiner. 

' A volume deserving a cordial welcome to every house and heart. 
The variety of thought and expression, and yet the perfect harmony 
of tone of feeling which marks this spiritual wreath for a christian 
cemetery, will make it live and bloom as long as sorrow is known.' — 

Hunt's Magazine. 



The Holy Land and its Inhabitants- By S. G. 

BiLihnch. Being a description of this interesting coun- 
try, and also a History of it, Ancient and Modern, its 
Antiquities, &c. &c. 

Lives of Eminent Unitarians ; with a Notice of 
Dissenting Academies, containing Lives of Robertson, 
Palmer, Priestley, Price, and others. By the Rev. W. 
Turner, Jim., M. A. 2 vols. 12mo. 



Henry Ware, Jr. Views of Christian Truth, Piety, 
and Morality, Selected from the Writings of Dr. Priest- 
ley. With a Memoir of his Life. By Henry Ware, 
Jr. 12mo. pp. 288. 

' Mr. Ware has here erected a noble and enduring monument of the 
pure and truly Christian character of one of the most gifted and single- 
hearted of Christian confessors. The Memoir, compiled for the most 
part from Dr. Priestley's own letters, and other writings, and drawn 
up with care, is interesting throughout, and full of instruction. The 
same may also be said of the selection of sermons, and other pieces 
which make up the body of the work ; for they are almost exclusively 
practical, and present ' views of Christian truth, piety, and morality,' 
remarkable for their good sense, strictness, and discrimination.'— 
Chtistian Examiner. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY S PUBLICATIONS. y 

Ware on Christian Character. On the Formation 
of Christian Character, addressed to those who are 
seeking to lead a Religions Life. By Henry Ware, 
Jr., D. D. Twelfth Edition. 18mo. 



Henry Ware, Jr.'s Hints on Extemporaneous 
Preaching", with rules for its government. Third 
Edition. 

1 It is the object of this little work to draw the attention of those 
who are preparing for the Christian ministry, or who have just 
entered it, to a mode of preaching-, which the writer thinks has been 
too much discountenanced and despised : but which under proper 
restrictions, he is persuaded may add greatly to the opportunities of 
ministerial usefulness.' — The Preface. 



Ware's Life of the Savior. The Life of the Savior. 
By Henry Ware, Jr., Professor of Pulpit Eloquence 
and the Pastoral Care in Harvard University, pp. 284. 
Fourth Edition. 18mo. 

' If we can suppose any person to be a stranger to the Gospel his- 
torians, in a Christian land, we think Professor Ware's narrative with 
its illustrations would be to such a person a work of unequalled in- 
terest in biography, provided he possessed a common share of moral 
sensibility. To one somewhat acquainted with those histories, perused, 
as they usually are, under great disadvantages in our common ver- 
sion, in small, detached portions, and without any helps, this ' Life of 
the Savior ' affords assistance, in various ways, at once in a more 
popular and a more intelligible form than can elsewhere be found, so 
far as we know. This volume is intended particularly for the young; 
but it is a valuable aid to every reader of the Gospels ; an aid to the 
understanding of them, and an aid to reflections upon their truths. It 
unites, in some good measure, the advantages of a paraphrase and a 
commentary, without the feebleness of the former, or the dryness of 
the latter.' — American Monthly Review. 



Henry Ware, Jr's. Scenes and Characters, Illus- 
trating Christian Truth. In a series of Tales, each 
number complete in itself. To be had separately. 
Edited by the Rev. H. Ware, Jr. 

' If we may judge of this series of little works from the two numbers 
which have appeared, we should say that it bids fair to be eminently 
useful, and to realize whatever we might expect from the high 
character of the writers engaged. They should be read. Whoever 
contributes at all to circulate them does good to the public.'— Bost on 
Daily Advertiser. 



10 JAMES MUNE.OE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

1. TRIAL AND SELF-DISCIPLINE. By Miss Savage, Author of ' James 
Talbot.' 

{ If the remaining numbers shall he executed with the same skill, 
and the same deep religious feelings which pervade the first, these 
little volumes will be an important addition to the works which make 
religion attractive and lovely.' — Christian Register. 

2. THE SCEPTIC. By Mrs. Follcn, Autlior of ' The Well-spent Hour.' 

1 This is an admirable little book, which no one will dip into without 
reading through, and no one will read through without being improved 
and delighted. The argumentative portions are clear and forcible, and 
are naturally and skilfully interwoven with the web of the story. 
The characters are conceived and sustained wonderfully well, and 
never were the Christian graces more beautifully and consistently 
displayed than in the life and conversation of Alice Grey. We owe a 
debt of gratitude to the writer who gives us so natural and true a pic- 
ture of the influence of Christianity upon our daily and hourly duties, 
and of the mighty power which it bestows upon the character and 
affections.' — Boston Observer. 

5. HOME. By Miss Sedgwick, Autlior of < Redwood; &c. 

1 The influence of an enlightened mind and pure heart is shed, like 
sunshine, over all that Miss Sedgwick writes.' — Mrs. Child. 

' One of the sweetest homely pictures of domestic life among the 
middle classes of New England, which it is possible to imagine, and 
one full of the instruction which makes a way to the heart.' — Taifs 
Magazine. 

4. GLEAMS OF TRUTH. By the Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, D. D. 

' This little work differs from its predecessors in being not a ficti- 
tious and connected narrative, but a collection of detached facts, 
anecdotes, and conversations, which actually occurred within the 
writer's own experience. This difference, while it adds to its value, 

will not make it less interesting, but the contrary Truth 

is strange, and stranger than fiction, and the most creative imagina- 
tion could not have conceived more striking and consistent illustra- 
tions of Christian character than are here presented to us to admire 

and imitate Nothing can be more elevating, inspiring, and 

encouraging, than the instances which he has here given us.' — Boston 
Observer. 

6. THE BACKSLIDER. By the Author of the < Hugenots,' &c. 

' The Blackslider is intended to illustrate the influence of Chris- 
tianity on minds differently constituted, particularly on the two prin- 
cipal characters of the story. In Anna Hope, we see its effects on a 
mind naturally well balanced. In Walter we see the good seed scat- 
tered on the thin soil ; and it is the aim of the writer to show where 
the lack of root is.' ' Such fictions as the one before us, by their 
faithful and graphic representations of human nature, affect us for 
the time like reality.' — Christian Examiner. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. li 

ALFRED : or, the Effects of True Repentance, And the BETTER 
PART. By the Author of ' Sophia Morton.' 



Mrs. Farrar's Life of John Howard, the Philan- 
thropist, with a Preface by Rev. Henry Ware, Jr. 

This volume gives an interesting narrative of the Life and also of 
the various undertakings of this eminent philanthropist ; it is written 
with all the vijror of the other works of its author. 



Memoir of Rev. Joseph Tuckerman, (Minister to 
the Poor.) By Rev. W. E. Charming. 18mo. 

Joufifroy's Ethics. Introduction to Ethics : including 
a Critical Survey of Moral Systems. Translated from 
the French of Jonnroy. By William H. Charming. 

This work consists of a critical review of various ethical systems ; 
aiming to give a fair view of the merits and demerits of each, with, 
especial regard to the particular points wherein lay the faultiness of 
each. To every student of moral philosophy, and of the history of 
the human mind, such a sketch must be of very great interest and 
value. 



Burnap's Lectures to Young Men; on the culti- 
vation of the Mind, the formation of Character, and 
the Conduct of Life. Second Edition. By George W. 
Bitmap. 1 vol 12mo. 

' Remarkable for the intelligent spirit which they display, and the 
sound moral instructions conveyed.' — Phila. Ledger* 

Lectures on the Sphere and Duties of Woman, 

and other subjects. By George W. Bitmap. 1 voL 
12 mo. 

' The duties of Women, and especially of American females, are 
ably defined, and correctly animadverted on. We take pleasure in 
recommending it as a work that all parents should place in the hands 
of their daughters, and the husband in that of his wife.' — N. Y. Lady's 
Companion. 

' We commend the book to the attention of every female, whether 
young or old, and whatever station she may fill. They will find a 
true friend in the author, and cannot fail to draw improvement from 
his admonitions.' — Boston Courier. 

Lectures on the History of Christianity. By 

George W. Bitmap. 1 vol. 12mo. 



12 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

Memoir of James Jackson, Jr. M. D. written by 
his Father, with extracts from his Letters, and remin- 
iscences of him by a Fellow Student. 18mo. 



Memoir of Nathaniel Bowditch, (the Mathemati- 
cian.) 18mo. 

Dewey's Sermons. Discourses on various subjects. 
By Rev. Orville Dewey. 3 vols. 12mo. 

W- H. Furness. Jesus and his Biographers ; or the 
remarks on the Four Gospels, revised with copious 
additions. By W. H. Furness. 1 vol. 8vo. 



Ripley's Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature. 
Edited by George Ripley. 14 vols 12mo. 

Volumes 12 and 13, containing De WETTE'S HUMAN 
LIFE. See page 6. 

Volume 14. SONGS AND BALLADS. With notes. 
Translated by Charles T. Brooks. 

The Unitarian. Conducted by Bernard Whitman, 
8vo. pp. 590. 

Meditations for the Sick. By Jonathan Cole. 1 8mo. 



Tracts of the American Unitarian Association. 

In 15 vols. 12mo. 

Christian Disciple. 6 volumes, 8vo. 
Christian Examiner, complete to 1844. 35 vols. 

The pages of this work have been enriched by contributions from 
the pens of Worcester, Channing, Norton, Greenwood, Ware, and 
others. 



Henry Ware, D. D. An Inquiry into the Foundation, 
Evidences, and Truths of Religion. By Henry "Ware, 
D. Do late Hollis Professor of Divinity in Harvard 
College. 2 vols. 12mo. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 13 

Theodore ; or the Skeptic's Conversion. Translated 
from the German of De Wette. By James F. Clarke. 
2 vols. 12mo. 

Sparks's Essays and Tracts- A Collection of Es- 
says and Tracts in Theology. From various Authors, 
with Biographical and Critical Notices. By Jared 
Sparks. 6 vols. 12mo. 

Unitarian Miscellany, and Christian Monitor. Edited 
by Rev. Jared Sparks, and Rev. F. W. P. Greenwood. 
6 vols. 12mo. 

The Young Maiden. By Rev. A. B. Mussey. Fourth 
Edition. 

*It will be perused with advantage by the class for whom it is 
especially designed, and will secure the favorable judgment of their 
most judicious friends.' — London Inquirer. 

The Young- Man's Friend. By A. B. Mussey. 18mo. 
Second Edition. 



Week Day Religion. By Rev. Bernard Whitman. 
18mo. 

Gieseler's Text Book of Ecclesiastical History. By J. 
C. I. Gieseler, Doctor of Philosophy and Theology, 
and Professor of Theology in Gottingen. Translated 
from the Third German Edition by Francis Cunning- 
ham. 3 vols. 8vo. 



Observations on the Bible, for the use of Young Per- 
sons. 12mo. 



Locke on the Epistles. A Paraphrase and Notes 
on the Epistles of St Paul to the Galatians, First and 
Second Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians. To 
which is prefixed an Essay for the Understanding of 
St. Paul's Epistles, by consulting St. Paul himself. By 
John Locke. 8vo. pp. 456. 

The Dial, Published quarterly, 16 numbers now ©ut 
Edited by R. W. Emerson. 
DS^ A few complete sets only remaining on hand. 
2 



14 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

JUST PUBLISHED. 

LECTURES 

ON 

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 

By Andrew P. Peabody, Pastor of the South Church, 
Portsmouth. 1 vol. 12mo. 



ENDEAVORS 

AFTER THE 

CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

A Volume of Discourses by James Martineau. 12mo. 

Contents. The Spirit of Life in Jesus Christ; The Besetting 
God ; Great Principles and Small Duties ; Eden and Gethsemane ; 
Sorrow no Sin ; Christian Peace ; Religion on False Pretences 5 
Mammon Worship ; The Kingdom of God within us, Part I ; The 
Kingdom of God within us, Part II; The Contentment of Sorrow; 
Immortality ; The Communion of Saints ; Christ's Treatment of 
Guilt; The Strength of the Lonely; Hand and Heart ; Silence and 
Meditation ; Winter Worship ; The Great Year of Providence ; Christ 
and the Little Child ; The Christianity of Old Age ; Nothing Human 
ever Dies. — 

' These discourses form part of an extensive plan ; and may be con- 
sidered not so much a separate work, as an introduction to a complete 
treatise on the Christian character and life. Their object is to awaken 
the Christian spirit, rather than to describe the perfect Christian life ; 
and while they inculcate specific duties and warn against specific 
sins, their leading design is to excite and strengthen the devout spirit 
that will lead us always to perform all duties. 

' We recommend the volume to our readers as the production of an 
enlightened Christian mind, full of earnestness and power and love of 
souls. It was composed because the author had something to say on 
the highest subjects of human thought, because his heart overflows 
with sympathy for the ills of man, and because he has felt for himself 
the blessedness of laboring for their removal. He is an enthusiast ; 
but an intelligent one, who does not expect to remove social. evils by 
the application of any fine-spun political system, but by awakening 
in each individual heart some mighty emotion, that shall lead to the 
reformation of that individual life. 

' The discourses on the Kingdom of God within us, on Great Prin- 
ciples and Small Duties, on Immortality and the Great Year of Provi- 
dence, are particularly interesting and instructive.' — Monthly Miscellany 

LETTERS ON EPISCOPACY. By Jared Sparks. 
Second Edition, with large additions. 1 vol. 12mo. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 15 

NEW HYMN BOOK. 

The Social Hymn Book, consisting of Psalms and 
Hymns, for Social Worship and Private Devotion. 
With 28 pages music. 

' It is designed to supply the want which is believed to be increasing, 
of a small and cheap Hymn Book for vestry meetings, and for parishes 
that are unable to procure more expensive collections.' — The Preface. 

1 The collection contains 360 Hymns, 14 Doxologies, 21 Sacred 
tunes. There are somewhat more than 130 of the Hymns which are 
not found in Dr. Greenwood's, of these a portion are found in some of 
the other collections ; a part of them are truly exquisite and beautiful, 
and ought to appear in every collection. 

' The hymns which Mr. Robbins has introduced, in general do 
credit to his taste and reading. Some of those from Bishop Mant's 
Collection of Ancient Hymns seem harsh to most readers on a first 
perusal, but familiarity renders them highly attractive and stores the 
heart with rich and beautiful sentiments.' — Christian Register. 

' In looking over this work, we are happy to recognize a number 
of our favorite hymns, the omission of which in other collections 
we have always regretted. The Book breathes the spirit of the con- 
ference room, and is at the same time well adapted, as it is in part 
intended, ' for parishes that are unable to procure more expensive col- 
lections.' ' — Salem Observer. 

' This is an admirable selection of devotional hymns, and will, 
doubtless, become a favorite one for the purposes for which it was 
designed. The collection was made by Rev. Chandler Robbins, of 
this city, whose name, alone, is a sufficient guaranty for its excel- 
lence. We hail this little work, as one among the signs we daily see, 
of interest in the work of enlivening the whole Church, and bringing 
us all into an active, visible cooperation. 

' We ought to say in addition, that at the close of the book are 
placed some twenty, or more, of the most beautiful and popular tunes 
used at social religious meetings.' — Christian World. 

' We welcome, with the rest, the graceful little volume before us, as 
supplying a want, which has been sensibly felt in a department of our 
social worship, and as well adapted to private and domestic devotion. 
The excellence of its typographical execution invites attention, which 
will be amply rewarded by its skilfully selected and arranged con- 
tents. 

' For infant and feeble parishes, ' unable to procure more expen- 
sive collections ; ' for the meetings of the vestry and all other social 
services among Christians ; for the private and domestic altar we 
cordially recommend the Selection before us. It unites the indispen- 
sable grace of a Christian spirit, by which it is pervaded, with poetic 
beauty : and so entire is its freedom from doubtful or sectarian phrase- 
ology, thai it may easily become the manual, and a favorite one too, of 
Christians of various denominations.' — Monthly Miscellany. 

K^ Already used in several parishes. Copies furnished to clergy 
and others, for examination. 



16 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS, 



MANUALS 

FOR 

SABBATH SCHOOLS. 

Livermore's Commentary. 2 vols. See page 1. 

A Catechism of Natural Theology- By I Nichols, 
D. D., Pastor of the First Church in Portland. Third 
Edition, with additions and improvements. 12mo. 
Plates. 

1 Dr. Nichols has prefixed to his work the appropriate motto, ' Every 
house is builded by some man ; but he that built all things is God; ' 
and the work is a very happy illustration of its motto. It is devoted 
principally to an examination of the human frame, and it is shown 
that the conformation of its various parts, and their adaptation to the 
purposes which they are known to serve, could not have happened 
without the design of an intelligent Creator. It is better adapted to 
the comprehension of youth and common readers, than the more 
elaborate and extended treatises of Paley and others ; and next to the 
Holy Scriptures, is one of the most interesting and useful fields of 
contemplation which could be spread out before them. If any person 
can peruse this little book without feeling a kindred emotion, and 
forming a similar puipose, the fact would be an affecting proof of the 
alienation of the heart from its Maker. When it is remembered that 
Atheism is among the spreading errors of our land, we see an addi- 
tional reason for directing our youth to such intellectual pursuits, as 
will furnish the best defences against this arch heresy ; and such we 
regard the contents of the work under review. We are glad that a 
new edition of the work has been demanded, and that it makes its 
appearance in a style of execution so worthy of its matter.' — Chris- 
tian Mirror, Portland, Me. 

Hints to Sunday School Teachers, in a series of 
Familiar Lectures. By Rev. T. B. Fox. l&mo. price 
25 cents. 

Allen's Questions. Parts 1, 2, and 3. 18mo. 

Walker's Service Book. i8mo. 

Fox's Sunday School Prayer Book. l8mo. 

Child's Duties and Devotions. l8mo. 

The Ministry of Christ, with Questions. By Rev. 
T. B. Fox. 18mo. 



JAMES MUNK.OE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 17 

Peabody's Sunday School Hymn Book. l8mo. 

Chaimixig's, Worcester Association, Rhode Island, and 
Carpenter's Catechisms. 

Life of the Savior- By Rev. H. Ware, Jr. 18mo, 
see page 9. 

Scripture Truths in Questions and Answers, for the 
use of Sunday Schools and Families. 18mo. pp. 75. 

* The writer of this little manual has not attempted to do better 
where others have done well. Nor is this simply another Sunday 
School book — though that would be no objection. It is in facta 
new Sunday School book. It enters a province which has heretofore 
been kept shut, at least in the schools of Liberal Christians ; viz. the 
province of doctrine. * * =* With these views we welcome this book. 
Every question that is apt to arise, concerning God, Christ, Faith, 
Ordinances, Prayer, Repentance, &c. &c, is answered by a passage of 
Scripture ; and there are very few passages that do not contain fair 
answers and sufficient exposition for the young. The controverted 
and most difficult texts are more fully explained, yet with great sim- 
plicity, in notes, and also an Appendix. In the hands of well in- 
structed and judicious teachers, no one, we think, would doubt the 
utility of such a manual. In families, to be used by parents, it is 
excellent. Indeed for general use we feel free to commend it. The 
plan and execution as a whole we like, and hope a fair trial will be 
given it.' — Monthly Miscellany. 

' We are ignorant of the name of the Author of this little book, but 
we think he has done good service to the cause of religious instruc- 
tion. We are not in favor of the multiplication of manuals for the 
use of Sunday Schools, but the arrangement and plan of this work, 
are such as to make it a valuable assistant to any parent and Sunday 
School Teacher.' — Christian Register. 

The Sunday School Teacher's Guide. By A. B. 

Muzzey. 18mo. 

J. M. & Co. being engaged in the publication of 
Juvenile Works, can offer to individuals and others, 
selecting for Sabbath, School, and District Libraries, 
superior advantages. And they keep constantly on 
hand the largest assortment of Juveniles to be found, 
embracing all the works by Mary Howitt, Mrs. Ellis, 
Aunt Kitty, Charlotte Elizabeth, The Abbotts, and others. 
All of which will be sold at a LARGE DISCOUNT, 
from the trade prices. 

HF^ 3000 volumes now on hand. 
2* 



18 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

MANUALS 

FOR 

DAILY DEVOTION. 

Hours for Heaven : a small but choice Selection of 
Prayers, from Eminent Divines of the Church of Eng- 
land. Intended as a Devotional Companion for Young 
Persons. 32mo. gilt edges. 

' This is a little manual of devotion, consisting of prayers and 
meditations for each day in the week, with additions of prayers for 
particular occasions. 

' To the prayers are added many miscellaneous pieces in prose and 
verse, suited for aids to devotion ; and, lastly, several weighty religious 
aphorisms. 

' There are here and there forms of invocation, and single expres- 
sions, from which we dissent; but the spirit, and, with few exceptions, 
the language, is such that we do not fear to recommend the book to 
serious Christians of all denominations.' — Christian Register. 

' A choice selection of prayers from eminent Divines which is 
designed as a devotional companion. It is an elegant little volume, 
nicely printed and bound, and its contents will be very acceptable to 
any that may read them occasionally, as designed.' — Ploughman. 

Fair's Prayers. Forms of Morning and Evening 
Prayer, composed for the use of Families. By Jona- 
than Farr. 16mo. pp. 174. 

■ The ' Forms of Morning and Evening Prayer' are among the best 
that have come under our notice, — at once calm and fervent, scriptu- 
ral and rational ; for which reason we doubt not that they will find 
general favor among those who are accustomed to avail themselves of 
such helps to private or domestic devotion. The volume is very 
neatly printed and done up, and contains prayers for every day in a 
fortnight, and eight morning and evening prayers for any day in the 
week, and a great variety of occasional prayers for families, and for 
individuals.' — Christian Examiner. 



Se well's Daily Devotions, for a Family, with occa- 
sional Prayers. Second Edition. 12mo. 

Greenwood's Chapel Liturgy ; collected principally 
from the Book of Common Prayer. Fifth Edition; 
with Family Prayers and Services, and other Addi- 
tions. By F. W. P. Greenwood. 12mo. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. lO 

Brooks's Prayers. A Family Prayer Book, and Pri- 
vate Manual ; to ■which are added, Forms for Religious 
Societies and Schools, with a Collection of Hymns. 
By Charles Brooks, Minister of the Third Church in 
Hingham, Massachusetts. 12mo. 

' Both as to its substance and form, it is a work of an excellent 
design, and well calculated to answer its design ; and considering how 
much it is wanted amongst us, and how much good it may do, we are 
happy in having this opportunity to recommend it most cordially.' — 
Christian Disciple. 



Bo wring's Matins and Vespers ; with Hymns and 
Occasional Devotional Pieces. By John Bowring. 
London. ISmo. Price 50 cents. 

' There is in them a frequent display, or rather the presence without 
the display, of a tenderness and pathos, an elegant simplicity and 
devotional feeling, which win upon the heart, and sometimes touch it 
as with strains from unearthly worlds. There is no drama, no tale, 
no controversy in these poems ; they are truly ' Matins and Vespers.' 
They charm by their modesty and sensibility, and by a deep venera- 
tion of, and an ardent expression of gratitude towards, our Almighty 
Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor. Many of the pictures in them of 
the love and compassion of God towards his creatures are truly beau- 
tiful and affecting.' — Christian Observer, London. 



Furness's Domestic Worship. By "W. H. Furness, 
Pastor of the First Congregational Unitarian Church 
in Philadelphia. Second Edition. 12mo. 

' The prayers are divided into sections and are not specially appro- 
priated to the several days of the week; that opportunity may be 
given for selection, omission, and variety.'. — The Preface. 

The Social Hyxnn Book; consisting of Psalms and 
Hymns for Social Worship and Private Devotion. 
Compiled by Rev. Chandler Bobbins. 18mo. 

Devotional Exercises. Compiled by J. T Bucking- 
ham. 18mo. Third Edition. 

' We like this little volume extremely. The plan is happy and it is 
executed with exceedingly good judgment and taste.' — N. A. Review. 

' This unpretending little volume is compiled from the Book of 
Prove ibs, the Book of Psalms, and the Gospels. The compiler has 
executed his task with excellent judgment, and we most heartily 
recommend it.' — Salem Observer. 



20 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 

HISTORY 

OF THE 

HAWAIIAN OR SANDWICH ISLANDS, 

Embracing their Antiquities, Legends, Discovery by 
Europeans in the Sixteenth Century, Rediscovery by 
Cook, with their Civil, Religious, and Political History, 
from the earliest period to the present time. By 
James Jackson Jarves, Member of the Am. Oriental 
Society. With Maps and Plates. 8vo. 

{ The book is carefully prepared and furnishes a highly attractive 
narrative. The ground over which the author has passed has been 
almost entirely nntrod before him, and the history will be quite new, 
we believe, to almost all readers. It is a history full of its passages 
of romance, — for these islands have not been exempted from the 
stirring excitements of larger communities.' — Boston Daily Advertiser. 

' The work bears the marks of great attention and patient research ; 
the narrative is easy, flowing, and spirited, in a style adapted to the 
subject.' — Pliiladdphia Christian Observer. 

' Mr. J. has produced an excellent and permanently valuable book.' 
— Boston Recorder. 

' It supplies a deficiency in our literature, and is finished in such a 
manner that it will not have to be done again. This work will be a 
favorite ; it affords information not easily found elsewhere, and if 
attainable at a//, only to be collected by great labor, and from a variety 
of sources.' — Baptist Memorial and Monthly Chronicle. 



N. HAWTHORNE'S TWICE TOLD TALES. 2 
vols. 12mo. Cloth. 

' A "whole volume of collected Miscellanies of great merit is before 
us. We mean Mr. Hawthorne's ' Twice Told Tales,' which will one 
day or other be naturalized into our Library of Romance, if truth, 
fancy, pathos, and originality, have any longer power to diffuse a 
reputation. He has caught the true fantastic spirit, which somewhere 
or other exists in every society, be it ever so utilitarian and practical, 
linking the seen to the unseen, the matter of fact to the imaginative. 
As a recounter of mere legends, Mr. Hawthorne claims high praise. 
We cannot too heartily commend this book as the best addition that 
has been made to what may be called the Fairy Library, which has 
been made for many years.' — London Foreign and Colonial Quarterhj 
Review. 

'To this little work we would say, ' Live ever, sweet, sweet book.' 
It comes from the hand of a man of genius. Every thing about it has 
the freshness of morning and of May. A calm, thoughtful face seems 
to be looking at you from every page. — N. A. Review. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 2\ 



SCENES AND SCENERY 

IN THE 

SANDWICH ISLANDS, 

And a trip through Central America: being observa- 
tions from my Note-book during the years 1837-1842. 
By James J. Jarves, Author of the History of the 
Sandwich Islands, &c, embellished with Map and 4 
plates. 

' Mr. Jarves has enjoyed peculiar advantages for acquiring an accu- 
rate knowledge of the past and present condition of this people, their 
manners and customs, and the natural features and resources of the 
islands ; and of these he has fully availed himself. He seems to have 
written without fear or prejudice, desirous of doing ample justice to 
missionary effort, and exposing the more than savage outrage of for- 
eign residents and visiters, some of them high in official station, with 
fearlessness. 

' From the two works of Mr. J., a more accurate idea of the islands 
may he obtained, than from any other source. There is much liveli- 
ness in his narrative ; and an occasional imperfection in the structure 
of a sentence, or the inexact use of a word, shows that he did not 
write in fetters. In his ' Sketches,' particularly, he has managed so 
to intermingle the offensive and the ludicrous, the beautiful and the 
economical, as to portray well the peculiar transition state of this 
people. Whoever would find an account of the Sandwich Islands, 
both amusing and instructive, will not fail to read Mr. J.'s books.' — 
Christian Review. 

1 The book before us, written by Mr. James Jackson Jarves, is illus- 
trative of the recent progress of religion, science, and refinement in 
that most interesting group — the Sandwich Islands. 

' We rarely read a book of this class from beginning to end : to the 
volume before us, however, we have paid this compliment. It con- 
tains many provincialisms, and, strange to say, a few grammatical 
errors ; yet we like the spirit in which it is written, and the vividness 
with which the author paints novel scenes in the North Pacific' — 
New World. 



SONGS AND BALLADS. 

Translated from Uhland, Korner, Burger, and other 
German Lyric Poets, with notes. By Charles T. 
Brooks. 

1 In this volume we have presented to us a string of beautiful pearls. 

' The typographical execution of the work is good, and the pub- 
lishers merit commendation. We think the volume well worthy q, 
place among the selected poetry of the day.' — American Eclectic. 



22 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS. 



MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS. 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANIES. 4 vols. 

" SARTOR RES ART US. Fourth American Edition. 

HEROES OF HISTORY. 1 vol. 
FRENCH REVOLUTION. 2 vols. 
" WILHELM MEISTER. 3 vols. 

PAST AND PRESENT. 1 vol. 
CHARTISM. 1 vol. 

GERMAN ROMANCE: Specimens of its chief 
authors ; with Biographical and Critical Notices. By Thomas 
Carlyle. 2 vols. 12mo. 
ESSAYS BY R. W. EMERSON. 1 vol. 

Contents. History; Self Reliance; Compensation; Spiritual 
Laws ; Love ; Friendship ; Prudence ; Heroism ; The Over Soul ; 
Circles ; Intellect ; Art. 

NATURE. By R. W. Emerson. 

LIFE OF CRABBE THE POET. By his Son. 12mo. 
THE HAMLETS, A TALE. By Miss Martineau. 2d. Ed. 18mo. 
PIERPONT'S POEMS, now first collected. lCmo. 
POLITE LITERATURE IN GERMANY. Translated by Geo. 
W. Haven. lGmo. 

COLERIDGE'S CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT. 

AIDS TO REFLECTION. By S. T. Coleridge. 8vo. 

TUCKER'S LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED, with a Memoir. 
4 vols. Svo. 

GUIZOT'S ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE AND CHARAC- 
TER OF WASHINGTON. lGmo. 
GREENWOOD'S SERMONS, with a Memoir. 2 vols. 12mo. 

STEWART'S ELEMENTS OF THE HUMAN MIND. Svo. 4th 
Edition. 

CHANNING'S WORKS, Edited by the Author. 6 vols. 12mo. 

SUNDAY LIBRARY FOR YOUNG PERSONS. 4 vols. 18mo. 

HOLMES'S ANNALS OF AMERICA. 2 vols. Svo. 

HISTORY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. By B. Peirce. 8vo. 

MARY HOWITT'S, STRIVE AND THRIVE. 

HOPE ON! HOPE EVER. 

" " SOWING AND REAPING. 

WHO SHALL BE GREATEST? 

TALES IN PROSE. 

" " TALES IN VERSE. 

« " TALES IN NATURAL HISTORY. 



JAMES MUNK.OE AND COMPANY S CATALOGUE. 



23 



STANDARD WORKS. 



Bancroft's U. S. 3 vols. 

Sparks's Life of Washington. 1 vol. 

" American Biography. 10 vols. 
Franklin's Works. 10 vols. 
Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella. 3 v. 

vt Mexico. 3 vols. 

Burke's Works. 9 vols. 
Stephens's Central America. 2 vols. 

" Yucatan. 2 vols. 

" Arabia Petroe. 2 vols. 

" Greece, &c. 2 vols. 

Story's Writings. 1 vol. 
Shakspeare. Various Editions. 
Milton's Poetical Works. 2 vols. 

" Prose Works. 2 vols. 
Cowper's Poems. 2 vols. 
Longfellow's Poems. 3 vols. 
Encyclopedia Americana. 13 vols. 
Miss Bremer's Works. 1 vol. 
Edo-e worth's " 



10 vols. 
2 vols. 
8 vols. 



Hannah More's " 
Sherwood's " 

Butler's Works. 2 vols. 
Spenser's " 5 vols. 
Channing's " 6 vols. 

Henry Ware's Works. 
Charlotte Elizabeth's Works 



Greenwood's Works. 
Follen's " 5 vols. 

Heman's " 5 vols. 

Whittier, Tennyson, Leigh Hunt, Scott, 

Barry Cornwall, and Lowell's Poems. 
Burns's Works. 1 vol. 
Aiken's British Poets. 8vo. 
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
Lamb's Complete Works. 8vo. 
Herbert's Poems and Remains. 2 vols. 
Latrobe's Scripture Illustrations. 4to. 
D'Aubigne's Reformation. 3 vols. 
Neander's Church History. 
Bible in Spain. 

Milman's History of Christianity. 
Buckminster's Works. 2 vols. 12mo. 
Life of Jean Paul Richter. 2 vols. 
Peabody's Doctrinal Discourses. 12mo. 
Allison's History of Europe. 4 vols. 

8vo. 
Carlyle's Works. 14 vols. 12mo. 
Poets and Poetry of America. 
Buckminster's Works. 2 vols. 
Walter Scott's Novels, Poems, and Life, 

uniform. 39 vols. 
Paley's Works. 6 vols. 
Young's Old English Prose Writers. 9 v. 



MRS. SIGOURNEY'S 
PLEASANT MEMORIES OF PLEASANT LANDS. Sd. Ed. with additions. 

16mo. Illustrated with two beautiful Engravings. Cloth. 

1 It has all the charms which characterize the works of William 
Howitt, besides its poetical illustrations of some of the most romantic 
spots known over the wide earth.' — Christian Register. 

' It contains a variety of articles, suggested by a recent visit to Great 
Britain, in poetry and prose, but all of a superior order, and all calcu- 
lated to enchain the attention of the reader, — and while the beautiful 
description of scenes abroad tends to enlighten, the elegant language 
and the elevated sentiments must purify the heart.' 

NEAT MINIATURE VOLUMEsTlN CLOTH, GILT EDGES. 

Channing's Self- Culture; Hours for Heaven: Pure Gold; Sentiment 
of Flowers ; Hemans, Wordsworth, Campbell, and Bowring's Poetical 
Works ; Casket of Four Jewels ; Bible and the Closet ; Marriage Ring; 
Daily Manna ; Elizabeth, or the Exiles of Siberia ; Vicar of Wakefield ; 
Goldsmith's Essays; Gems from American Poets: Hannah More's 
Private Devotion ; Token of the Heart ; Paul and Virginia ; Flower 
Vase ; Gems from Female Poets ; Scott's Poetical Works, 3 vols. ; 
Coleridge's Poetical Works ; Barton's Poems ; Remember Me ; Queen 
of Flowers. 



JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY, 

Publishers, Booksellers, and Stationers, 

134 WASHINGTON STREET, 
BOSTON, 

KEEP CONSTANTLY ON HAND A LARGE ASSORTMENT OF 

MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS, SUITABLE FOR CITY, 

TOWN, AND VILLAGE LIBRARIES. 

|£~r*PERSONAL ATTENTION PAID TO ALL ORDERS ENTRUSTED TO THEIR CARE. 

SCHOOL BOOKS, ALL THE VARIETIES IN USE IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 



Books imported to order, in large or small quantities, 
by every steamer ; and answers to orders received in 
thirty to sixty days. Orders from incorporated institu- 
tions, executed free of duty. 



Particular attention paid to the furnishing of Juvenile 
Libraries, either Sabbath or Day School, and as low as 
can be procured anywhere in the city. 



Merchants, School Committees, and Teachers, supplied 
with Books and Stationery at a large discount from Trade 
Prices. 

J. M. & Co, are also publishers of 

THE 

AMERICAN ALMANAC, 

AND 

REPOSITORY OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 

Edited by Francis Bowen. 14 volumes now ready. Back 
volumes supplied. 



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